
Class 18^3 

Book /5l €Yl 



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COPYRIGHT DEPOSIT. 



PRISONERS OF HOPE 



By the Rt. Rev. CHARLES H. BRENT, D.D. 



ADVENTURE FOR GOD. CrOWH 8v0. 

THE CONSOLATIONS OF THE CROSS. Small 12m0. 

LEADERSHIP. CrOWH 8V0. 

LIBERTY AND OTHER SERMONS. CrOWU 8V0. 

THE MIND OF CHRIST JESUS ON THE CHURCH OF THE 

living god. Small 8vo. 
presence. Small 12mo. 

THE SPLENDOR OF THE HUMAN BODY. Small ISmO. 

with god in the world. Small 12mo. 

THE REVELATION OF DISCOVERY. CrOWU 8V0. 
PRISONERS OF HOPE. CrOWU 8v0. 



LONGMANS, GREEN, & CO. 



PRISONERS OF HOPE 
AND OTHER SERMONS 



BY 

The Rt. Rev. CHARLES H. BRENT 

Bishop of the Philippine Islands 



LONGMANS, GREEN, AND CO 

FOURTH AVENUE & 30TH STREET, NEW YORK 
LONDON, BOMBAY, CALCUTTA, AND MADRAS 

1915 



COPYRIGHT, 1915, BY LONGMANS, GREEN, AND CO. 



APR 16 1915 



:i a ;ins a 7 5 



PREFATORY NOTE 

' I A HESE sermons cover many years and girdle the 
-*■ world. They represent many of the ideals I hold 
for Church, State, and individual. Most of them have 
appeared in print singly in America, England, and the 
Far East. All were either stenographically reported or 
else written down from memory after delivery. 

C. H. B. 

Manila, 19U. 



MATILDA MARKOE 
HER BOOK 



CONTENTS 

I 

REVELATION 

PAGE 

I PRISONERS OF HOPE 3 

II THROUGH THE TERRIBLE TO THE GLORIOUS 12 

III WHOLE MAN FOR WHOLE GOD 31 

VI THE WAR OF THE GREAT DAY OF GOD 42 

V THE CENTRE OF LIFE 52 

II 

CHRISTIAN THOUGHT AND LIFE 

VI A LESSON IN PITT 69 

VII THE STRONG YOUNG MAN 77 

VIII A PLEA FOR FAIRNESS 92 

IX IT BEHOOVES MAN TO SUFFER 105 

X GOING UP TO JERUSALEM 121 

XI A LITTLE CHILD SHALL LEAD THEM 142 

XII THAT I MAY KNOW HIM 151 

XIII OPPORTUNITY 159 

XIV A GLORIOUS MINISTRY 169 

III 

THE NATION 

XV HYPOCRISY 185 

XVI LEADERSHIP IN THE STATE 200 

XVII THE MISUNDERSTOOD 212 

XVIII THE WEAK FOR THE STRONG 223 

ix 



x CONTENTS 

PAGE 

XIX THE NATION FOR THE NATIONS 234 

XX NATIONAL STEWARDSHIP 243 

XXI NATIONALITY 256 

XXII AMERICAN DEMOCRACY IN THE PHILIPPINE ISLANDS 269 

XXIII FLAG DAY ADDRESS 276 



I 

KEVELATION 



PRISONERS OF HOPE 1 

Turn ye to the stronghold, ye 'prisoners of hope. Zech. ix, 12. 

r I ^HESE words belong to permanent literature. That 
-■- is to say, they are always and everywhere true. 
They were spoken by a real man in real conditions, a 
man like ourselves in conditions similar to these troubled 
days in which we live. 

They are words of fiery idealism uttered in a moment 
of time when the foundations of the world were broken 
up, when the wreckage of one invasion lay in the rear 
and the prospect of another hostile attack lay before. 
They are pertinent words now when the older and 
major part of Christendom is writhing in an orgy of self- 
destruction. We may be distant in space from the 
scene of the holocaust, but no war is so far off now as to 
be to us merely as distant thunder. We are too near to 
play the role of cold critics. The sensitiveness of the 
social whole is such as to make the sufferings of Europe 

1 Preached at the Cathedral of S. Mary and S. John, Manila, 
Sunday, September 20, 1914. 

3 



4 PRISONERS OF HOPE 

reach every heart like a sword-point steeped in poison. 
The innocent victims are strewn over the whole world. 
We, the sharers of the civilization that is contradicting 
itself on the battlefield of the West, have reason to ask 
whether all our vaunted advance in science, in intellec- 
tual achievement, in material prosperity, is not rotten 
at the core. If the horrors that are our daily food are the 
logical result of what is called progress, then civiliza- 
tion is the most ghastly mockery that has yet possessed 
the world of men, and we would be justified in calling 
upon God to come and purge it by annihilating it. 

The world's day is dark. No one can forecast the 
future. Men who love and believe in peace are be- 
wildered and staggering. Neither by day nor by night 
can we escape from the vision of the river of human 
blood that is dyeing the soil of Europe. Yet it is a 
curious fact which I cannot explain that the greatest 
moral and spiritual opportunity is always carried in the 
bosom of the greatest horrors. If we men rise in these 
evil days and buy up our opportunity, thus co-operating 
with God, this war (may it be the last war), will con- 
tribute to humanity costly treasures out of the folds 
of its filthy garments. Yes, out of horrors come beauty 
and power. 

The first story of man's rebellion against God is 
quickly followed by the sure promise of man's ultimate 



PRISONERS OF HOPE 5 

triumph over evil. The Crucifixion seems to extinguish 
in permanent night the purest and the best ideals and 
hopes of the world; in less than forty-eight hours 
comes out of the tomb in which dead hope was buried 
the victory of victories — life defeating death. Read the 
Book of the Revelation and you will find that the 
heavenly Jerusalem is reached only by wading through 
page after page of terrible things. Every true seer must 
have this experience. So Tennyson: 

For I dipt into the future far as the human eye could see, 
Saw the visions of the world, and all the wonder that would be; 
Saw the heavens filled with commerce, argosies of magic sails, 
Pilots of the purple twilight, dropping down with costly bales; 
Heard the heavens filled with shouting, and there rained a ghastly dew 
From the nations' airy navies grappling in the central blue. 
Far along the world wide whisper of the south wind rushing warm, 
With the standards of the people plunging, through the thunder storm; 
Till the war drum throbbed no longer and the battle flags were furled 
In the parliament of man, the federation of the world. 

Let me pause for a moment here to say to you who 
are discontented with your lot, cowardly in your diffi- 
culties, that it is with the individual as with the nations 
— you can win your manhood only by finding your 
highest opportunity in your most evil days. We are 
prisoners of hope. We believe in ultimate permanent 
peace. We can not accept the dictum of Prince von 
Buelow: "Even if we had not been threatened with war 



6 PRISONERS OF HOPE 

during the last decades we must realize that there is no 
such thing as permanent peace and must remember 
Moltke's words. ' Permanent peace is a dream and not 
even a beautiful one. But war is an essential element of 
God's scheme of the world.'" 

Yes, we will remember, remember in order to confute, 
and disbelieve in, Moltke's unlovely dogma. 

While hundreds of thousands of men are being 
slaughtered, while nations are crumbling into ruin, 
while the whole world is agog, we will proclaim our- 
selves prisoners of hope. We believe peace is God's 
settled order, peace social, industrial, international, 
and that it will be the distinguishing note of human 
life as soon as men are willing. 

We will take our stand by the brave, clear-eyed man 
who two thousand, three hundred years ago, with 
infinitely less reason than ourselves to believe in 
peace, said he saw it coming. We will claim as our 
leader that other patriot and lover of men who three 
hundred years earlier foresaw the disarmament of 
the world and exclaimed: "They shall beat their 
swords into ploughshares, and their spears into pruning 
hooks; nation shall not lift up sword against nation: 
neither shall they learn war any more." We will link 
our fortunes with that young British poet, Noyes, who 
is even now singing of the "Dawn of Peace. " Read his 



PRISONERS OF HOPE 7 

Winepress with the closing words of the epilogue, and 
its dreams of peace : 

Dreams are they f But ye cannot stay them 
Or thrust the dawn back for one hour I 
Truth, Love, Justice, if ye slay them, 
Return with more than earthly power; 
Strive, if ye will, to seal the fountains 
That send the spring through leaf and spray. 
Drive back the sun from the Eastern mountains, 
Then — bid this mightier movement stay. 

It is the Dawn ! The Dawn I the nations 
From East to West have heard a cry — 
Though all earitis blood-red generations 
By hate and slaughter climbed thus high, 
Here — on this height — still to aspire. 
One only path remains untrod, 
One path of love and peace climbs higher 
Make straight that highway for our God. 

It is no passionless peace, mere quiescence, that we 
will claim. That is only another form of death: 

Peace sitting under her olive, slurring the days gone by, 

When the poor are hovelled and hustled together, each sex, like swine 

When only the ledger lives, and when only not all men lie; 

Peace in her vineyard — Yes I — but a company forges the wine, 

Is it peace or war ? better, war ! loud war by land and sea, 
War with a thousand battles and shaking a thousand thrones. 

What we expect is a peace that is the highest and most 
creative form of energy. It is figured and exhibited in 
the life of Christ as a human possibility and duty. 



8 PRISONERS OF HOPE 

1. It recognizes the sacredness of the individual, 
body, mind, and soul, whether of little child, prostitute, 
liar, or that person who is your pet aversion, and it 
tries to bring out the latent greatness that is enshrined 
in every human life. 

I have been living since I was last here among the 
least and simplest of men, the Igorots. One of the last 
things I saw was a page out of the daily life of an Ameri- 
can woman who for long years has lived there. She is a 
woman who has had all the best things that education 
and cultured friendship can bestow. She chooses to live 
miles away from people of her blood in an Igorot town. 
I see her now wending her way down the mountain 
side through the filth of the village to seek a decrepit 
old man, who, hearing her voice, crawls out of his hovel 
with smiling face that she may bathe the hideous ulcers 
on his emaciated body. Or again, she is surrounded by 
groups of little children, or is speaking words of friend- 
ship to the women. 

Look at that noble Alsatian, Dr. Schweitzer, noted as 
a musician and author, musical critic, organist to the 
Paris Bach Society, famous as a writer on theology as 
well as art. In mature life he studied medicine in 
Strassburg, Berlin, and Paris, and with his wife went to 
French Equatorial Africa as a medical missionary, 
beginning his dispensary in a discarded hen-house. 



PRISONERS OF HOPE 9 

There he now is among the victims of sleeping sickness, 
leprosy, and the foul diseases of the tropics. 

Tell me, which would you rather be — such as these 
or a Napoleon? Why, when the martial achievements 
of the most victorious general or admiral have faded 
into insignificance, the service of these servants of God 
will burn with steady light. The difference is between 
death and life, destruction and construction, desecra- 
tion and sanctity. These look at men as pawns in a 
game of human chess; those as God's children, each one 
sacred. War, under cover of protecting the sanctity of 
the nation, outrages and desecrates the sanctity of the 
individual. 

2. It recognizes justice and humility as being bound 
by an unbreakable tie to peace. 

Zechariah saw the King of Peace coming, just and 
lowly. Peace never comes any other way. When arro- 
gance, self-conceit, and prejudice, or antecedent hostil- 
ity of spirit, enter one door, peace goes out of the other. 
Justice is, after all, part of humility. It is giving your 
neighbor equal consideration with yourself — not placing 
your claims even one notch higher. 

I say to you of to-day, "Turn you to the stronghold, 
ye prisoners of hope. " The stronghold is the Christ in 
whom and from whom are justice, humility, and peace. 
Without Him there is no hope of peace. Money 



10 PRISONERS OF HOPE 

cannot buy it. Wisdom cannot concoct it. Force 
cannot capture it. We can promote it and hasten 
its coming. This war must stir us to earnestness, and 
startle us into sincerity. Two things let me urge: (a) 
Get your perspective of life right. Seek ye, first, the 
Kingdom of God and His righteousness. Neither busi- 
ness nor pleasure can come first without disaster. It is 
a hard thing to get true perspective. It needs an artist's 
hand. But the Kingdom of God will never abide in the 
second place. It must be first or not at all. Service is 
the keynote of the Kingdom. Let nothing deflect your 
life from personal service which must occupy the major 
part of our working hours. 

(b) If you are at war with others are your wars 
honorable wars, or wars declared out of the abundance 
of your arrogance and self-conceit? The way of peace 
lies before, to be courted and won. Blessed are the 
peacemakers for they shall be called the children of 
God. 

In closing let me again quote von Buelow — this time 
with hearty approval: "It is an old truth that men 
grasp nothing more closely than their hopes, and that if 
given the choice of greater hope or small fulfilment, 
they choose the former. " 

We rejoice, therefore, that we are prisoners of hope, 
and hold out our wrists to receive hope's silken fetters. 



PRISONERS OF HOPE 11 

We refuse to live in to-day. We live in to-morrow. Our 
ideal enlarges as we advance. We can never rest con- 
tent unless we are storming some fresh difficulty, each 
successive one more defiant than the last. 

"One of the marked characteristics of great men of 
action is their refusal to rest, even when they have 
seemed to have gained a surfeit of glory and to have 
climbed to almost incredible heights of power. " 

Go home and play your part in God's programme 
of peace in family, society, and business, peace born of 
humility. It will call for patience, for patience is the 
under-pinning of humility. Some day the prisoners of 
hope will step out into the great liberty of hope realized. 



II 

THROUGH THE TERRIBLE TO THE GLORIOUS 1 

After these things I saw, and behold, a door opened in heaven, and the 
first voice which I heard, a voice as of a trumpet speaking with me, one 
saying, Come up hither, and I will shew thee the things which must come 
to pass hereafter. Straightway I was in the Spirit; and behold! . . . Rev. 
iv, 1, 2. 

THE language and imagery of the book from which 
I took the Scripture lesson and from which I have 
taken my text, at times at any rate, seems to be extrava- 
gant and to describe that which is very foreign to our 
own experience. Again, there are other moments in life 
when nothing short of the most vivid imagery, such 
imagery as we get here, will suffice to declare our 
spiritual experience, and the Book of the Revelation 
seems to me to give to us, after these days we have 
spent together, just the sort of thing that we need. 
You will remember how the book begins, how there is a 
study, under the guidance of God, of the spiritual values 
of the activities and life of the seven representative 

1 Preached at the Conference of the World's Student Christian 
Federation at Lake Mohonk, N. Y. f Jime 2-8, 1913. 

12 



TERRIBLE TO THE GLORIOUS 13 

churches. The churches were just such as might be 
found in our own day, but they are revealed to us from 
the under side and we are permitted to see them as God 
sees them. At the very outset of this study, there 
comes the vision of the Christ, and it is in the power of 
that vision that S. John makes his investigation as to 
what the condition of the churches really was. And how 
honest S. John was. He had had a hand in shaping 
the spiritual life of the day. It may be that he saw 
some of his own defects portrayed in the defects of 
the churches, that he had contributed not merely to the 
spiritual power but also to the spiritual weakness of the 
churches, for we must not deify S. John. S. John was 
a man, and he would not have dared to undertake his 
task without first of all a vision of Christ. So he was in 
the Spirit, and the most conspicuous thing in the midst 
of the churches was not their defects, but the figure of 
Him who, with eyes aflame and with the experience 
of the ages, was walking to and fro and doing work not 
merely in and through His servants but also beyond 
them. 

After the study of the churches there comes — and 
my text is the introduction to it — the unfolding of God's 
purpose for the future; things terrible and things 
splendid lie between that moment and the goal, judg- 
ment and glory, disaster and triumph. How unintelli- 



14 THROUGH THE TERRIBLE 

gible and how awful in their mysterious darkness some 
of these visions in the Apocalypse are! But it closes 
the way last night closed. There was the roll of the 
thunder and the flash of the lightning and the tearing 
of the elements and the dashing of the rain, then the 
peace and the radiance of the quiet of the sunset. We 
come to the close of the Book of the Revelation in the 
consummation of God's great purpose for mankind, 
the heavenly Jerusalem, the perfect order, not made by 
man's hands but coming down from heaven. 

Again, standing on the threshold of this marvellous 
description of the morrow is, not this time Christ, but 
God in His absolute reality and in the completeness of 
His essence, in the centre of His universe with creation 
bursting into adoration, "Holy, Holy, Holy, Lord God 
Almighty, which was and is and is to come. " This book 
written by S. John is a most daring attempt to describe 
the unutterable, and especially such a vision as that of 
the Absolute. And we can understand why here we 
must have that, how impossible it would have been for 
S. John to have gone on to study all the "things which 
must come to pass hereafter" — where the blood would 
rise to the bridles of the horses, where there were 
dragons, where there was terrifying chaos and confusion 
for the moment — unless he had seen God in the midst 
of it all, God protecting His elect. S. John saw all 



TO THE GLORIOUS 15 

through the opened door, and through Him who was 
the heart of his vision, through God. 

Indeed, we know it is perfectly true in our own case 
that it is impossible to face the terrible unless we are 
first armed with the splendid, and God is the heart of 
splendor. It is impossible for us to face the splendid — 
I mean the splendid for man — unless we have God 
beside us, so that He and not man alone is seen as the 
force to work out the splendid in us. Otherwise, the 
splendid is what? It is the impossible rising to mock 
us, something to tell us of our own impotence and 
inability to advance beyond being mere sons of men. 
You say, "Ah, yes; the Book of the Revelation is the 
language of a rich imagination, but it is also the experi- 
ence of a mystic, a man who had temperament that I 
do not possess. " It is true that it is the experience of a 
mystic, and I do not wish anybody to suppose that I 
believe everyone is capable of having those extraordin- 
ary visions which belong to a select group of men who 
must first pass through a depth of suffering that few 
of us are capable of; nevertheless, I do maintain that, 
while this book is the experience of a mystic, it is 
a representative book and portrays representative 
experience rather than a singular experience, and it 
seems to me if we are looking about to find something 
to give voice to our experiences in these past days when 



16 THROUGH THE TERRIBLE 

we have been together in the Spirit in the presence of 
God, we can find nothing better than what here lies 
before us. 

We have surveyed, or we have tried to survey, things 
as they are. We have adjudged spiritual values. We 
have tried to be absolutely honest in our criticism of 
ourselves and our Movement, and it may be of our 
various Communions. But we would not have dared 
to do it if we had not asked God to judge for and in 
and with us. We cannot judge ourselves. There is too 
much of self in the fore, we are too near ourselves, to be 
fair; but we know God will judge us impartially in order 
to burn out what He finds imperfect in us. So we have 
been asking Him, either in explicit or implicit terms, to 
judge us and our activities during these past days, and 
we have seen our defects. In our case, as in that of S. 
John, has it not been so that the chief figure, the chief 
thought, has been the Christ figure and the Christ 
thought? Christ is ancient and yet He is modern. He 
has hair white as snow, but He has eyes like a flame of 
fire. We have not had to look back to find Christ; we 
have only had to look and to look in. What a happy 
thing it is that we have not to search the tangle of 
history before we can find the Christ, that He is so near 
that we can touch Him by stretching out the hand! 
He, we recognize in our Movement, has been working 



TO THE GLORIOUS 17 

in and through us. We can see evidence of this every- 
where. But then, we know, too, that He has been 
working beyond us. Let us think for a moment of the 
unrecognized activities of the Christ. Let us think of 
the unexplored wealth of God, the depth of the riches 
of the wisdom and of the love of God. It is not even 
what God is doing through us and in us that is the main 
thing in His world. It is what God is doing beyond us. 
Well, we have passed through the study of actual 
conditions. We have adjudged the spiritual values of 
our yesterdays and now we face our to-morrows. In a 
literal sense and in a spiritual sense, we have been on the 
mountain-top and the valleys stretch away at our feet. 
Viewed from the mountain-top, how wondrous are the 
valleys, so great in possibilities, so broad in expanse, 
so that when we go down into them we go into that 
which is equally magnificent with the mountains. If the 
mountains look great from the valleys, the valleys look 
great from the mountains. Let us carry the spirit of the 
mountain-top with us; let us look through the open 
door towards the things that must come to pass. 
"They must come to pass." It is God who said it, not 
we, as we laid our plans and lifted towards Him our 
aspirations. It is God who said that things must come 
to pass, that the impossible is possible, that the perilous 
is safe, that the commonplace is glorious. God forbid 



18 THROUGH THE TERRIBLE 

that anyone should seem to derogate from or depreciate 
the magnificent in self-sacrifice and self -donation; but 
it is not — I say this to correct a possible wrong impres- 
sion that I gave yesterday — it is not that the self-sacri- 
fice and self -donation of the man who gives himself to a 
difficult task in the foreign field is not splendid, magni- 
ficent, heroic; but that the rest of Christian life is just 
as heroic. Any self-donation, I care not what, however 
commonplace and dull and gray it may seem to be, 
viewed through God's eyes, is just as splendid as that, 
the splendor of which is so easy to perceive. We stand 
at the opened door and we look through at the common- 
place. O my brothers and my sisters, remember there 
is nothing humdrum in your lives, because Christ is 
walking in the midst of the golden candlesticks and 
God in His absolute reality is standing between you 
and your task, so that if you are going to see your task 
as it really is you must see it through the splendor and 
the glory of His being. He stands in the opened door, 
and through Him and in Him we pass to what He would 
have us do. First, the vision of God; then, the vision of 
life with all its vast opportunities, its vast interests. 

Now if we do pass through, what will happen? Why 
this will happen. We shall become, in a sense higher 
than when the term was applied to Spinoza, God- 
intoxicated men. And we must be that. Our universe 



TO THE GLORIOUS 19 

must be soaked through and through with the presence 
of God. You know, there are two visions. There is the 
Christ vision and the God vision, and the God vision is 
even higher than the Christ vision, because it comes 
after and on account of the Christ vision. Christ is 
what He said: "the Way, the Truth, and the Life." 
Now what I would plead for is this — the cultivation in 
your own lives, and in the lives of students so far as you 
are able to influence them, of a subconscious grasp of 
God that will be the main foundation of life. Unless 
men have such a subconscious grasp of God, life is not 
secure. There are moments when we rise, as on this 
occasion, to peculiarly acute consciousness of God and 
His presence. We reach moments when symbols are 
inadequate to express what we have seen and known of 
God. We have been pressed into His bosom; we have 
felt the pulsation of His heart. Ah, but why should I 
try to describe the ineffable? These are moments of 
high value, but the great thing in life is to have a sub- 
conscious conviction of Christ's presence, and, of course, 
of His character. Because what is the value of knowing 
a presence unless you know that that presence is the 
presence of One who has infinite love, absolute holiness, 
boundless wisdom? There have been moments in my 
life, and probably your experience has paralleled mine, 
when, after great activities, because of the dust of the 



20 THROUGH THE TERRIBLE 

world that has soiled the soul, I have attempted to reach 
down into the subconscious self to find God and I have 
found vacancy. I can think of no more horrible black 
moments of life than when such experiences have been 
mine, and may God preserve you from the horror of 
such moments. Do you not recall at the close of 
Browning's Easter Day how the universe, which has 
been given back to the man he depicts, is revealed as 
being without God and therefore as ashes in his hands? 
Do you not remember how at first it seemed as though 
the universe was going to be a joy to him, but when he 
finds that there is not any God, either in his conscious 
or in his subconscious life, or in the universe outside, he 
tries to pray and says: 

Thou Love of God I Or let me die, 
Or grant what shall seem heaven almost! 
Let me not know that all is lost. 
Though lost it be — leave me not tied 
To this despair, this corpse-like bride! 

I am emphasizing the horror of awaking to the fact 
that God is not in all our thoughts, that we are without 
God even for a moment, in order to show what a per- 
manent source of joy and inspiration we have when we 
develop that subconscious conviction that we are God's 
and God is ours, that in Him we live and move and have 
our being. S. Paul knew the meaning of it all, especially 



TO THE GLORIOUS 21 

he knew the meaning of the heights. But then, you 
know, no one can scale the heights until he has plumbed 
the depths. "Who shall separate us from the love of 
Christ? Shall tribulation, or anguish, or persecution, or 
famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword? . . . Nay, in 
all these things we are more than conquerors through 
Him that loved us. For I am persuaded, that neither 
death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor things 
present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor 
depth, nor any other creature, shall be able to separate 
us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our 
Lord." 

But how are we to reach this subconscious conviction 
so that it will be there not merely as a living thing, but 
as a progressive living thing? Well, we reach it by being 
in the Spirit, by making a steady effort to develop the 
higher consciousness, the operation of which is faith. 
The development of the higher consciousness — and if we 
could only appreciate just what that means, just what 
the possibilities of our higher consciousness are. It is 
our higher consciousness in its fullest development that 
will finally manifest us as the children of God. We must 
remember that in man is God's great creative venture. 
Man is not a finished product yet, by any means. The 
rest of creation presumably and apparently is. Look at 
plant life in its fixity, in its immobility, in its satisfac- 



22 THROUGH THE TERRIBLE 

tion with the conditions which surround it and with 
which it is such good friends. Then look at the animal, 
with its highly developed instincts, so that thought and 
action are coincident. And how unerring its instinct is ! 
Yes, the plant and animal are completed. But man is 
not. Man is groping and striving. It is true that he is 
developing his thought, that he can organize matter, 
and perceive form. But there is another side of man. 
There is another department of man's consciousness 
beside the intelligence, and that is what I have called 
the higher consciousness, which expresses itself in the 
activities of faith. Man partly is and wholly hopes to be, 
and we rise to God's likeness by faith. That is the way 
we co-operate with God in His great creative venture. 
"Beloved, now are we the sons of God; but it doth not 
appear what we shall be." There is something lying 
beyond. "The whole creation groaneth and travaileth 
together, waiting for the manifestation of the Sons of 
God. " And it is in our power to speed the day. 

But faith, remember — and I am glad that so much 
stress has been laid on faith in this Conference — is not 
mere belief. It is "awareness of, attention to, union 
with the Kingdom — convinced consciousness of a life 
lived in the atmosphere of God. " Faith is the energy by 
which we lay hold of the beloved. It is the arm of love 
laying hold of love itself. It is itself the request — indeed, 



TO THE GLORIOUS 23 

more than the request — the demand for something, and 
the appropriation of that for which we make demand. 
It is a contemplation and an activity. It is prior and 
superior to intelligence. It is not contradictory to it, 
but it soars to heights which intelligence never can 
reach because intelligence is bound by matter. It 
declares itself in submission to the control of elemental 
forces that fail to respond to any other call. Its sphere 
is the unseen and the unforeseen. It lays hold on super- 
sensual realities and changes the human to the divine. 
It accepts surprises, good and bad, as an inspiration 
and a challenge. That is faith. If I went on and on and 
on, I would not tell the limits of its possibilities. The 
intellect is the faculty by which we organize matter and 
perceive form. It has recently been said and it seems 
to me it is true, judging by universal experience, that 
the intellect is characterized "by a natural ability to 
comprehend life. " 

Now, I am leading to this. You who are guardians of 
the young, you who are leaders of student life, must 
remember and teach that the education of the intellect 
ends, if it is divorced from the education of the higher 
consciousness, in gross, however seemingly refined, 
materialism. This is bound to be wherever the educa- 
tion of the intellect and the development of the in- 
telligence is made the main thing. How important it is 



24 THROUGH THE TERRIBLE 

that we should insist among students that the first and 
most important part of their education is the nurture of 
the higher consciousness. See the effect in the Western 
world of putting undue stress on the education of the 
intellect, which so often reaches its zenith in the 
accumulation of information. Information will soon 
grow stale, because the information of to-day is the 
ancient history of to-morrow. See the effect, I say. It 
is to lay stress upon wealth, upon organization, upon all 
that pertains to the mere material side of life, and 
although knowledge is valuable and discussions of 
abstruse matters are full of interest, what great gift 
does knowledge give unless it enables a man to live life 
steadily and to live it to the full? It seems to me that 
much in the educational standards of to-day tends to 
paralyze instead of to inspire, for it binds man down to 
earth instead of lifting him up. I am not depreciating 
the true value of education of the intellect. I am simply 
saying it must be kept in its place. The intelligence is 
the lower consciousness, and the higher consciousness is 
that which expresses itself in faith reaching out into the 
unseen — nay, reaching out into the unforeseen and 
laying hold of vivid ideals to weave into the actual. 

The education of the higher consciousness begins in 
prayer. That is the first thing. We begin by making 
prayer the servant of our desires. And what happens if 



TO THE GLORIOUS 25 

we pray aright? Why, we become ourselves the servant 
of prayer. We become capable of doing the things which 
in our prayers we ask. Our prayers go from us as peti- 
tions, and they come back to us eventually as God's 
answer, so that the prayer and the answer coincide. 

But then, there is something beyond and greater in 
the education of the higher consciousness. I mean 
waiting still upon God. We people in the West do not 
know the meaning of meditation. We lay a value on 
time which really belongs to eternity. You have to go to 
the East in order to learn the meaning of contemplation 
and waiting still upon God. It is a very significant 
thing that your General-Secretary says in his report: 
"The plan of conducting conferences of leaders and 
officers has been wisely adopted. Of even greater 
promise is the multiplication of retreats in connection 
with which groups of workers go apart for periods of 
unhurried meditation and waiting upon God, and to 
these spiritual occasions are traceable some of the most 
vital results in the student field." 

What are the results of waiting upon God? I have 
already said that there will be that subconscious con- 
viction of God's presence and character, which is essen- 
tial to life. There are other things that flow out of it. 
One of them is courage. We shall be able to face terrible 
things that lie before us. We shall be not afraid of evil 



26 THROUGH THE TERRIBLE 

tidings, and our hearts will stand fast when we face, for 
example, the agnosticism and materialism of Japan that 
have to be faced, when we think of the despair of 
Russia which was faced with such magnificent courage 
by one of your leaders, and when we face the social 
tangle of which we are a part, the un-Christian order 
in which we live. Let me here insist that the social 
problem is not a storm beating on some distant coast. 
It is a condition of which we are a part, a disorder to 
which we contribute. Can we keep out of the social 
problem? We could not if we tried. If we went to the 
Desert of Sahara we would still be a part, a cowardly 
part, of the social problem. The social problem is life, 
and you cannot come to know life by merely studying 
it from the outside. When God wanted to know life, 
He became man. The only way to know life is to get 
inside of it. That is the principle of the Incarnation, to 
live it steadily, to live it whole, both in relation to the 
seen and the unseen, greeting the unseen with a cheer, 
and winning great successes by accepting great risks. 
Courage, that is the result of the subconscious convic- 
tion of God in our lives. 

And then — Oh, how we need it in our day ! — enthu- 
siasm, the fiery hope that comes from God, enthusiasm 
that will be as stable as it is fiery, the unembarrassed 
kind of enthusiasm such as you see in the child. It 



TO THE GLORIOUS 27 

used to be seen among men more frequently than in our 
day. Perhaps one reason why we lack unembarrassed 
enthusiasm is because our lower consciousness has been 
developed too much in advance of our higher conscious- 
ness. Again, I go to the defect of modern education. 
Intellectual over-training is apt to over-develop pru- 
dence until prudence becomes a phase of cowardice and 
takes away the capacity for self-imperilment. Unless 
education gives a man a vision of great causes, too 
great to be caged by definition, and fills him with 
self-abandonment and energy, then education is a 
failure. 

And thirdly, and I come to my last point, this sub- 
conscious grasp of God, this development of the higher 
consciousness, gives us vivid ideals. At the threshold 
of the opened door stands God in His absolute charac- 
ter. Through Him we pass into the perils which lie 
beyond, perils which without Him will destroy but with 
Him will upbuild us, into things terrible which form the 
path to things splendid. The man that is, is seen in God 
as the man that is to be : 

The catholic man who hath mightily won 

God out of knowledge, and good out of infinite pain. 

And sight out of blindness, and purity out of a stain. 

Through the opened door in the beyond we see the 



28 THROUGH THE TERRIBLE 

perfect social order which God is sending us from 
Heaven. The disorder of the Church as it is fades into 
the order of the Church as it is to be. We see the per- 
fection of the Bride of Christ, the highest phase of God's 
Kingdom on earth, our beloved Mother in God. The 
Church of God even now is the chief sphere and abode 
of the Spirit's work among men. We must love her, 
love her all the more because of her distress. If we 
criticize her, we must criticize her from within and not 
from without, after the pattern of our Master, and must 
criticize her to heal and not to hurt her. 

On the unity of the Church again let me quote from 
the report of your Secretary. "Many consider far the 
greatest contribution made by the Federation to be what 
it has accomplished in promoting true Christian unity. 
It has been a living inspiration, discovering for and in- 
creasing in multitudes of future leaders of the Church 
the sense of the unity of Christendom. It has shown the 
students of the East and the West that they are essen- 
tial to each other, and has borne in upon thoughtful men 
everywhere the conviction that the real unity of the 
human race can be found and realized only through 
Jesus Christ. " We see the unity that is and we reach 
out to the unity that must be hereafter, that will be 
when we make our utmost contribution. You have been 
discussing many years as to what the relation of the 



TO THE GLORIOUS 29 

Movement is to the Church. Why, it is simple. The 
Church, directly or indirectly, made you move, and you 
are moving within the Church. Be loyal to the Church. 
That means be loyal to yourselves as the Church of God, 
because you are the Church. You who are baptized into 
Christ are the Church, and you and your respective 
communions are acting as the first strands in the cord 
that is going to bind Christendom together, and bind it 
together according to the mind of Christ. The Move- 
ment must not degenerate into a sect. The Movement 
and the Church are not two independent circles touch- 
ing one another outside at the circumference. Their 
relation is of a part to a whole. Be loyal to the Church 
and ask your own Communion to capture the Move- 
ment, to take it into its heart, and to use it to the utter- 
most and to the last 

The picture of unity, the picture of the heavenly 
Jerusalem coming down from heaven — that lies before 
us as we go out to our tasks. And we go out to our 
tasks having, first of all, God in our thoughts and 
beneath our thoughts in our subconscious life. Let us 
gird ourselves for service in the spirit of self -donation, 
counting all things as of no value unless they contribute 
to life in Christ. Take up your work, then, in the spirit 
of self-forgetfulness, "divinest self-forgetfulness, at 
first a task and then a tonic, then a need, " and in God's 



30 TERRIBLE TO THE GLORIOUS 

time and way, through peril and through joy, we shall 
reach that multitude which no man can number, which 
stands before God's throne praising and serving Him for 
evermore. 



Ill 

WHOLE MAN FOR WHOLE GOD 1 

He which testifieth these things saith, Yea, I come quickly. Amen. Come 
Lord Jesus. Rev. xxii, 20. 

A COMMON impulse gathers us to-day in this place. 
We come in order to feel the touch of God upon 
our lives, to be confirmed in our belief that His power 
has not shrunk with the ages, but that He is still a tower 
of defence to those who trust in Him, to be challenged 
by some unrealized ideal, born not of man, but of God. 
We perceive the brave proportions of human capacity 
only when we are charged with the performance of a 
difficult task by the vision of things to be, such as that 
which shall be my theme this morning — the realization 
of the Unity of the Church of Christ. 

Consider God's impatience in behalf of man. His 
eagerness finds expression in the cry, "Yea, I come 
quickly. " He means it. His delight is among men. His 
rush manward is more direct than the arrow seeking its 
mark, more eager than the flight of the mother-bird 

1 Preached at S. Paul's Cathedral, London. 

31 



32 WHOLE MAN FOR WHOLE GOD 

on homeward wing. This approach of God to man is 
matchless in its generosity. It is not the response of 
God's abundance to man's need, but rather God's 
abundance leaping unbidden in the direction of man's 
capacity. From the Protevangel, "It shall bruise thy 
head, and thou shalt bruise his heel," to this the last 
chord in the symphony of the written Word, Divine 
announcement has ever anticipated human appeal. 
The invitation is accepted by God before it is issued by 
man. Can there be any surer witness to the dignity of 
human life than this? The effect of God's eager interest 
in man's affairs because they are human is to assure 
us that our dearest hopes and highest ideals are to reach 
their perfect consummation. No height is too high to 
scale if God is on our side, no task too impossible to 
undertake. We are stung into life. 

Side by side with God's impatience on behalf of man 
is His patience with man. He has never once forced His 
way into human life. If we are reluctant to receive 
Him, He waits: 

Jesu, Thou art standing 

Outside the fast-closed door, 
In lowly patience waiting 

To pass the threshold o'er. 

The latch is on the inside of the door, and only the 
human hand can lift it from within. God respects too 



WHOLE MAN FOR WHOLE GOD 33 

much the liberty of will with which He has endowed 
manhood to interfere with its operation. He is patient 
in His impatience. He comes quickly, according to an- 
nouncement — as quickly as we permit. Every prophecy 
in history is the sound of His approaching feet; every 
outburst of virtue is a gleam from the radiance of His 
face; every word of wisdom is the whispering of His 
counsel; every triumph over opposing forces is an echo 
of His might. As often as man refuses full entrance He 
accepts partial entrance. If the palace is closed, He 
waits in the park without. Be the door opened, never 
so little, His life enters and illumines. Does man refuse 
Him the symmetry of a unified Church, He seizes upon 
the broken order and works marvels with it. There was 
a time when the broken order and opposing forces 
seemed best. Now we have superior knowledge we 
cannot be content any longer with the lower after we 
have discerned the higher. The history of time is filled 
with His approaches, manifestations, dartings in, 
caresses. 

But so great, potentially, is the stature of human life 
that partial incarnations are inadequate. Only God, in 
the richness of His completeness, is sufficient for man in 
the richness of His possibilities — whole God for whole 
man. In the ripeness of time He found full entrance into 
human life. A body was prepared for Him. He entered 
a 



34 WHOLE MAN FOR WHOLE GOD 

humanity as every man-child enters the family — from 
within. The door may be bolted and barred, but no 
lock can keep the babe out. "The Word was made 
Flesh, and dwelt among us" — though only for a 
moment. He was thrust forth as soon as He was dis- 
covered. His foothold from the first was precarious — 
like that of the crag climber who clings to the face of the 
cliff where only birds can rest secure. In the prime of 
His manhood He was dislodged by cruel enemies and 
fell with pierced hands and bleeding feet outside the 
door of time. This, however, was not the end. Again, 
with force renewed and sympathy quickened by His 
human experience, He returned to the assault of love. 
For evermore the Spirit of God, by virtue of the In- 
carnation, is the Spirit of man. He seizes upon all that 
a sluggish, reluctant race will yield, leaving areas of 
luxuriance and brilliance wherever His eager cry " Yea, 
I come quickly" meets with the response "Amen, come, 
Lord Jesus." Yes, that may not be forgotten — an 
urgent announcement calls for an urgent reply. In the 
far-off days, when Isaiah spoke and wrote, it may have 
been sufficient for men to wait for God; now, instead of 
being passive, we must hasten toward Him as the 
shepherds hastened to the Bethlehem Babe. Our best 
must be His as well as our most. We must give Him 
room to dwell — whole man for whole God. Nothing 



WHOLE MAN FOR WHOLE GOD 35 

short is a worthy recognition of the approach of Him 
Who proclaims, "Yea, I come quickly." 

Whole man for whole God — this means a corporate 
offering. Mere individualism is a thing of yesterday. 
The written record of revelation begins with a garden 
and ends with a city ; it begins with a man and ends with 
man; it begins with an individual and ends with a 
society; it begins with a unit and ends with a unity. 
These days in which we live are not the beginning — 
they are the end. We must therefore offer God for His 
foothold a unified Church and an evangelized race. 
Unity in Christendom is the prayer and purpose of 
Jesus Christ. Its desirability is beyond dispute. The 
need of it those who, like myself, belong to a Christian 
Communion none too numerous or strong, and who, like 
myself, wear the proud title of missionary, alone can 
fully appreciate. Fragments can do only fragmentary 
work. Do not be deceived; without unity the conversion 
of great nations is well-nigh hopeless. The success of 
Missions is inextricably bound up with unity. It has 
been said by some one that we need not more but better 
Christians. Such antitheses are unfortunate. You can- 
not have better Christians without having more. The 
effort to expand is a requisite of health, but the ex- 
pansion must be of a unified Church, not of sectarian 
fragments. 



36 WHOLE MAN FOR WHOLE GOD 

There are four main obstacles in the way of promoting 
unity. First, acquiescence in the broken order. Satis- 
faction with the moderate success of things as they are, 
the acceptance of mediocrity as a necessity, is fatal in 
the Christian life. We have fleeting glimpses of Christ, 
when we ought to have a glowing vision. A mutilated 
Christendom can never have anything better than a 
mutilated conception of our Lord and an impoverished 
influx of His power. Our broken Christendom is wholly 
inadequate to meet the needs of society. We have 
rather settled down in the conviction that unity is not a 
possibility, and that we must therefore make the best of 
the situation as we find it. Unity is possible only so far 
as we believe it to be so, and there can be no realization 
of it or any other ideal until we crown our desire for 
it with our conviction that it must be. Secondly, the 
sense of security among great dominating Churches like 
the Church of England, the Roman Catholic Church, 
and the Orthodox Churches of the East. It is their mis- 
fortune rather than their fault if they fail to recognize 
the imperative need of unity. They are apt to be pre- 
judiced in their own favor by their prestige and posi- 
tion. They rejoice in their strength and mistake their 
local for universal influence. Endowed as each is with a 
body of systematic theology all its own, they are in 
danger of worshipping their idea of God instead of God, 



WHOLE MAN FOR WHOLE GOD 37 

and invoking the presence of their idea of Christ rather 
than Christ. Ideas are noble, but at best they contain 
only a cupful of nourishment and are soon wrung dry. 

Thirdly, the misuse of the word "Church. " So far as 
I am aware, there is no warrant except perverted use for 
the application of the word Church to any existing 
Christian Communion in the sense it is commonly in- 
tended. The word is so majestic in what it connotes that 
it cannot bear the restraint of adjectival qualification 
beyond what has been attached to it in the language of 
the Creeds. A distinguishing word linked to it — like 
Protestant or Episcopal, for instance — is apt to con- 
tradict the essential meaning of the word. The utmost 
it can bear is a territorial or a national characteriza- 
tion, and only then if it is applied with understanding. 
Its careless use obscures the catholicity of its sweep, 
caging men in sectarianism and removing the stinging 
rebuke which it for ever carries to a city that is not at 
unity with itself. My preference would be to term the 
various organic groups of Christians indiscriminately as 
Communions. Not one is to-day worthy of a better 
title. Then we could reserve "Church" for the Bride of 
Christ, that glorious Church, holy, without blemish, not 
having spot, or wrinkle, or any such thing. 

Fourthly, substitutes for unity, of which there are 
two principal ones, called respectively Undenomina- 



38 WHOLE MAN FOR WHOLE GOD 

tionalism and Uniformity. Undenominationalism at 
best can only hope to bring about a federative patch- 
work, "a glueing of the Churches together at the edges." 
At worst it will lead us into the slough of unreality by 
slurring over those distinctions of conviction which call 
for a treatment, not of obliteration, but of preservation 
and synthesis. The other substitute — Uniformity — is 
equally disastrous. At best it is capable only of creating 
structural dignity and formal completeness. At worst 
it would rob us of our royal liberties by an imperialistic 
tyranny. It is organic unity that we are reaching for, 
not reunion. The former is from within; the latter from 
without. The one is fundamental, the other artificial. 
It is a mistake to suppose that it is desirable to repro- 
duce the imperialistic unity of ancient times, good as it 
was for the moment. It is no more desirable or possible 
than it would be to regain the civilization that is past. 
That which is to be can be built only on that which is. 
There is a simple unity and a synthetic unity. The 
former precedes, the latter succeeds analysis. It is 
synthetic unity which is our goal. Our next formal or 
organized effort is to discover by personal conference 
just where we stand, and to clear the issues befogged 
by controversy. 

The Communion which I represent, less than two 
months ago in its Representative Council, composed of 



WHOLE MAN FOR WHOLE GOD 39 

upwards of three hundred picked presbyters and lay- 
men and more than a hundred Bishops, adopted, with- 
out a dissenting voice, the following resolution: 

"We believe that the time has now arrived when rep- 
resentatives of the whole family of Christ, led by the 
Holy Spirit, may be willing to come together for the 
consideration of questions of Faith and Order. We 
believe, further, that all Christian Communions are in 
accord with us in our desire to lay aside self-will, and to 
put on the mind which is in Jesus Christ our Lord. We 
would heed this call of the Spirit of God in all lowliness 
and with singleness of purpose. We would place our- 
selves by the side of our fellow-Christians, looking not 
only on our own things, but also on the things of others, 
convinced that our one hope of mutual understanding is 
in taking personal counsel together in the spirit of love 
and forbearance. It is our conviction that such a con- 
ference for the purpose of study and discussion, without 
power to legislate or to adopt resolutions, is the next 
step towards unity. With grief for our aloofness in the 
past and for other faults of pride and self-sufficiency 
which make for schism, with loyalty to the truth as we 
see it, and with respect for the convictions of those who 
differ from us, holding the belief that the beginnings of 
unity are to be found in the clear statement and full 
consideration of those things in which we differ, as well 



40 WHOLE MAN FOR WHOLE GOD 

as of those things in which we are at one, we respect- 
fully submit the following resolution: — Whereas, there 
is to-day among all Christian people a growing desire 
for the fulfilment of our Lord's prayer that all His 
disciples may be one, that the world may believe that 
God has sent Him, Resolved, That a Joint Commission 
be appointed to bring about a Conference for the con- 
sideration of questions touching faith and order, and 
that all Christian Communions throughout the world 
which confess our Lord Jesus Christ as God and Saviour 
be asked to unite with us in arranging for and conduct- 
ing such a conference. " 

"What a risk!" I hear some one say. Yes, I reply, a 
glorious risk. It were better far for a Christian Com- 
munion to risk the loss of its distinctive character in a 
brave effort toward unity than to sit in idle contem- 
plation of a shattered Christendom. At worst it would 
lose its eccentricities and prejudices; at best it would 
lose itself entirely in the splendor of unity according 
to the mind of Christ. But let there be what peril there 
may, peril for God's sake is the only safe condition for 
Church or Churchmen. It is more reasonable to be in 
peril than in security if the best things lie a hair's- 
breadth beyond the peril. Everything worth having is 
found only on the yonder side of a risk. We must have 
unity, not at all costs, but at all risks. A unified Church 



WHOLE MAN FOR WHOLE GOD 41 

is the only offering we dare present to the coming Christ, 
for in it alone will He find room to dwell. Whole man 
for whole God is our watchword. Let us expect unity, 
let us think unity, let us pray for unity, let us work for 
unity. If we fail, it will be better to fail because we have 
dared great things than because we have not dared at 
all, so that men can say that we aimed at — 

The high that proved too high, the heroic for earth too hard. 
The passion that left the ground to lose itself in the sky. 



IV 

THE WAR OF THE GREAT DAY OF GOD, THE 
ALMIGHTY 1 

Revelation xvi, 1%. 

A GREAT and good man was once travelling in 
■*~^- an English railway carriage. A religious fanatic, 
young, it is needless to say, sitting opposite, eyed him 
for a while. Then leaning forward he said to his senior : 
"Brother, have you found peace?" "No," was the 
prompt and emphatic reply, " I have found war. " 

To-day your hearts and minds are filled with joy and 
peace as you reach the consummation of your long 
cherished hopes and plans for unity. It would be an un- 
becoming and ungrateful thing for me upon whom you 
have bestowed the privilege of addressing you on this 
important occasion, were I to strike wilfully a jarring 
and unsympathetic note. Yet I would be untrue to my 
trust if I were to do less than speak the full truth as I 

1 A sermon preached on Sunday, 11 October, 1914, in the Union 
Church of Manila on the occasion of the union of the Presbyterian and 
Methodist English-speaking congregations. 

42 



WAR OF THE GREAT DAY OF GOD 43 

understand it. So I have chosen as the starting point 
of my message to you a striking phrase, full of awe and 
splendor. If for a moment I have lifted it from its 
grim setting it is only that you may more clearly dis- 
cover the meaning of the full context of which it is the 
keystone. The optimist is a man who wrenches brilliant 
truths from the stern defences of their setting; the 
pessimist is one who flings away the gem and clutches to 
his bosom the thorny frame; the Christian is a man who 
estimates both gem and setting at their full worth. 

Let me read you the whole passage in which the words 
of the text are enshrined: "They are spirits of devils, 
working signs; which go forth unto the kings of the 
whole world, to gather them together unto the war of 
the great day of God, the Almighty. (Behold, I come 
as a thief. Blessed is he that watcheth, and keepeth his 
garments, lest he walk naked, and they see his shame). 
And they gathered them together into the place which 
is called in Hebrew Har-Magedon. " 

It is at moments of history like the present that the 
Revelation of S. John the Divine becomes intelligible 
and a source of comfort and inspiration. To anyone 
who has tried to live, this book is not without rich 
meanings. Indeed it is an unveiling, for such is the 
meaning of "Apocalypse" or "revelation. " It opens up 
the deep things of life. In it there are always two ele- 



44 THE WAR OF THE GREAT 

ments as illustrated by this passage which I am quoting. 
There is the weird, ghastly, terrible; and the comely, 
noble, inspiring. They are always in close juxtaposition. 
You are swung rapidly from one to the other. The 
simple truth that is conveyed by the whole imagery is 
that for him who knows Christ the route to the best is 
by way of the worst. It is significant and instructive 
that the two characters, both of them well experienced 
in dark and dreadful disciplines, who have most suc- 
cessfully touched the heights of the sublime and stung 
men to fresh vision, are S. John the Divine and Dante. 
But they have done it only after painting with fearless 
and unsparing brush all that is terrible. 

So it is that the words I have taken for a text on this 
day of hope and gladness blaze forth from a grim setting 
like a tongue of fire in the night. In language that is 
startling and revolting we are told of the wrath of God 
being poured out on the earth in seven plagues — or 
swift blows, for "plague" is but the Greek word for 
" blow. " Things good in themselves become as poison — 
the earth is filled with ulcers, the sea is stagnant with 
blood as are the majestic rivers and the merry little 
streams that streak the valleys, the blessed fertilizing 
sun becomes a destroying furnace, the air vomits light- 
nings, and the family of men gather for war. Yet this is 
the Great Day of God the Almighty. 



DAY OF GOD, THE ALMIGHTY 45 

The picture is of an existing situation. It is of a 
civilization without God, the life-giving, the preserva- 
tive, the progressive element, and of the fate of such a 
civilization — self-destruction. But in the very ruins 
God's war for a truer civilization begins. His trumpets 
summon men to join with Him to usher in a Great Day. 
It is not that men think that they are without God in 
the world. On the contrary they prided themselves on 
their civilization being Christian. But the trouble has 
been God has been put second instead of first. We have 
tried to perform that impossible feat — marry God and 
the world power or "beast. " 

The world convulsion of to-day does not leave us 
outside of its upheaval. It is one of those swift visita- 
tions that come as a thief in the night and reveal our 
nakedness. It unveils us personally, industrially, 
socially, nationally, ecclesiastically. But to Him that 
watcheth it is the blessed and Great Day of God. 

The unveiling which Har-Magedon has already accom- 
plished is well stated in the words of one of my corre- 
spondents, a subject of one of the belligerent monarchs: 
"We are all very sad at the outbreak of the war — some 
of us at the proud boasting of our being free from blame 
and at the inability to see that we are not blameless 
because of our worship of the Golden Calf. That, with 
the same kind of worship offered to the same idol by our 



46 THE WAR OF THE GREAT 

chief foe for the past twenty years or more, is to blame, 
it seems to me. " 

The Churches can say but little. Have they not been 
constantly at war with one another for centuries, with 
seldom a truce even? We are a kingdom divided against 
itself and we have fallen. This war would have been an 
impossibility had the Church been one. If war is an 
evil in national life, it is a thousand-fold greater evil in 
church life. Humbled and awakened the Churches must 
renew their search for peace and unity according to 
God's will. But how? 

1. Not by slurring over honest differences or by slighting 
convictions. There is one thing worse than war — saying 
peace, peace where there is no peace. Twice that great 
statesman, Jeremiah, speaking of God's judgment on 
evil, counts it as one of the sins that the leaders have 
"healed the heart of my people lightly, saying, peace, 
peace where there is no peace." And Ezekiel likewise 
announces God's visitation on the prophets "because, 
even because they have seduced my people, saying 
peace, and there was no peace." To create the ap- 
pearance and use the name peace when there is no 
peace is insincerity, foolishness, a sand foundation. 
War is at least honest in its hates and rivalries. 

2. Not for economic reasons. I have heard business 
men at home argue that the churches must get together 



DAY OF GOD, THE ALMIGHTY 47 

in the mission field, because of waste of money ; if there 
were unity we should be able to do so much more with 
the money available. To plead this as a cause — it might 
be a convenient result — of unity is but a refined phase 
of the worship of the Golden Calf. Truth is always 
costly, and it were better far to be loyal to conviction in 
magnanimous separation than to heed such an argu- 
ment for unity. We cannot come together for reasons 
of commercial saving. 

3. Not for the sake of ease and convenience. Though I 
stand for and believe in peace, and wear the badge of 
the Peace Society, I am not an advocate of peace that 
has as its goal and motive ease and the love of ease. 
There are those who in self-indulgence, disliking the 
austere and difficult, long for peace as a means of 
gratifying their indolence. Peace, if I understand its 
meaning, has no room in its mansions for the idle or 
the cowardly. The demands of peace are more exacting 
than those of war. When we pass from war to peace we 
pass from compulsory to volitional effort, from necessity 
to choice. Because we forget this, peace falls into dis- 
repute. The forces of evil are organized and active 
frequently when those of righteousness are lolling in 
slippered ease. 

There were those among the abolitionists who after 
the Civil War folded their hands in smug satisfaction. 



48 THE WAR OF THE GREAT 

The victory was won. True. But victory won is always 
a starting point for higher achievement if the victory 
is to live as a permanent force. The result of indolent 
peace after the Civil War was that the freed-man in 
some respects was worse off than ever. Such men as 
General Howard and General Armstrong saved the 
situation, as far as it was saved. The establishment of 
peace was for them the signal for a "war of the Great 
Day of God." "There is something in this standing 
face to face with destiny," said General Armstrong, 
" looking into the darkness, that is inspiring : it appeals 
to manhood; it is thrilling like going into action." He 
interprets the duties of peace in terms of war. " The day- 
time of our labor for the freed people is short. The 
North has not as yet done its full duty in this matter. 
. . . The education of the freed-man is the great work 
of the Day; it is their only hope, the only power that 
can lift them up as a people, and I think every en- 
couragement should be given to schools established for 
their benefit." Later, when he found how grave his 
peace-war was, he said, with that delicious humor that 
was his : " It remains to make the best of things. Those 
who are hopeless disarm themselves, and may as well go 
to the rear; men and women of faith, optimists, to the 
front. This is the Christian era. In hoc signo vinces is 
the motto of the faithful; they are not afraid. But mere 



DAY OF GOD, THE ALMIGHTY 49 

optimism is stupid; sanctified common-sense is the 
force that counts. Work for God and man is full of 
detail. It needs organization, requires subordination, 
sometimes painful holding of the tongue; gabble and 
gossip, even that of the pious, is one of the most fatal 
devices of the evil one; the friction and fuss in God's 
army does much to defeat it. Many people are good, 
but good for nothing. Working together is as important 
as working at all. " 

No one has more reason than the Christian to believe 
in the necessity of peace with tension. One of England's 
most accomplished philosophers, Mr. Bosanquet, hold- 
ing the view that God is a " weary Titan " needing man's 
vigorous co-operation, maintains that "there is no satis- 
faction without tension. The Celestial City has its 
problems. The object of the soul's quest is not happi- 
ness, but, as Carlyle told his generation so often, 
blessedness. " 

The true motive for peace and unity is set forth in 
our Lord's profound prayer as recorded in John xvii: 
"That the world may believe that thou didst send 
me." It is a necessity for the knowledge of God which 
is life eternal, blessedness, that for which man was 
made. 

I have watched with interest and sympathy your 
brave and conscientious effort toward local unity. 

4 



50 THE WAR OF THE GREAT 

Though I differ from you strongly in matters pertaining 
both to faith and order, I differ from you in a construc- 
tive and not a controversial spirit. Organic unity 
between your communions and my own is not possible 
now, but there is a unity of the spirit in the bond of 
peace upon which I fall back even when it is necessary 
to emphasize differences. You have met and braved no 
small difficulties in the course of your negotiations 
between church and church. Two particularly stand 
out in relief. First, you have done in a particular in- 
stance what your churches in their completeness have 
as yet been unable to do. You have achieved local 
organic unity. It is surely the first and simplest step 
toward wider unity, that like-minded communions, 
which have no deep difference in matters of faith and 
order, should unite. It would appear to be logic to 
maintain that what local congregations can do, the 
whole churches of which they are units must do. Then 
in the second place you have faced and agreed to risk 
the danger of creating a rather nondescript church. 
These two considerations are important and I assume 
you have given them due heed. 

But let me insist that your new-born peace must be a 
signal for war, the war for and with God. If your 
difficulties have been great in the past, they are bound 
to be greater still in the future. Whenever we have 



DAY OF GOD, THE ALMIGHTY 51 

arrived at a Great Day of God it spells war. You will 
have to guard yourselves against any levelling down of 
convictions to a lowest common denomination. There 
must be no slighting of noble traditions. Else you may 
find yourselves spiritually adrift. Make worship of and 
devotion to the living Christ the pivot of your life. We 
may not allow Christ to be reduced to a system by ultra- 
ecclesiasticism or to an adjective of philosophy. He 
must be to us what above all else He is, Personality 
both human and divine. Unity should find its expres- 
sion in deepened moral earnestness that will reject with 
scorn the quibbles by which we allow doubtful and more 
than doubtful amusements, practices, and habits to 
continue in our lives. God's world is very good — earth, 
waters, sun, and sky. But civilization turns into a curse 
instead of a blessing if the priority of God is trifled with 
by men, and the things that should have been for their 
wealth become unto them an occasion of falling — peace 
turns for them into a trap. 

To-day in your triumph of unity and peace I sound 
the trumpet calling you to war. Men are made for 
tasks and in them they find their satisfaction. Manhood 
untaxed by problems falls into decay. Haste, then, to 
the war. "Take up the whole armor of God, that 
ye may be able to withstand in the evil day, and, 
having done all, to stand. Stand, therefore, having 



52 WAR OF THE GREAT DAY OF GOD 

girded your loins with truth, and having put on the 
breastplate of righteousness, and having shod your feet 
with the preparation of the gospel of peace; withal 
taking up the shield of faith, wherewith ye shall be able 
to quench all the fiery darts of the evil one. And take 
the helmet of salvation, and the sword of the Spirit, 
which is the word of God; with all prayer and supplica- 
tion praying at all seasons in the Spirit, and watching 
thereunto in all perseverance and supplication for all 
the saints" — and so will you be great and victorious 
warriors in the war of the Great Day of God, the 
Almighty. 



THE CENTRE OF LIFE 1 

After this I beheld, and, lo, a great multitude, which no man could 
number, of all nations, and kindreds, and people, and tongues, stood 
before the throne, and before the Lamb, clothed with white robes, and 
palms in their hands; And cried with a loud voice, saying, Salvation to 
our God which sitteth upon the throne, and unto the Lamb. Rev. vii, 9 
and 10. 

THE striking thing in this vision is not the vastness 
of the multitude, but its perfect unity and co- 
herence, though there is everything in the multitude to 
create diversity and, according to the experience of 
history, friction; the multitude consists of every nation, 
and all tribes, and peoples, and tongues. Evidently 
there is no more war; the nations have ceased to be 
independent units, and all are blended together in a 
magnificent family. Now the reason why this vast 
multitude has coherence and unity is made apparent, — 
that is the striking thing in the passage. The eyes of all 
are fixed upon one central point, and all life flows toward 

1 Preached in S. Paul's Cathedral, Boston, Massachusetts, Sunday, 
November 2, 1913. 

53 



54 THE CENTRE OF LIFE 

a throne. Man has ceased to have his way, and God at 
last has His way. The result is beauty, and righteous- 
ness, and peace. 

God the centre of life, — I think that is the main point 
brought out by this passage. And not merely God, but 
God in His character of the Self -giving One. The multi- 
tude are crying with a loud voice, saying, Salvation unto 
our God which sitteth upon the throne, and unto the Lamb. 
Why unto the Lamb? Because the Lamb expresses the 
character of God. God manifests Himself through 
Christ; and Christ's chief characteristic (if we may so 
speak) is His constant giving of Himself. The Lamb 
represents the idea of sacrifice. So there we have, quite 
clearly placed before us, the means by which the great 
multitude of human kind are going to be unified, and 
their lives consummated. 

It is a very interesting thing, and of extreme value, 
that when God is represented in the pages of Scripture, 
He is never represented as being alone, but always 
in the midst of intelligent beings who are sharing His 
life. Go back even to the Old Testament conception 
of God, to the earliest picture that is drawn of Him — 
God goes seeking man, He cannot rest alone; and so, out 
of the abundance of His love, because His Fatherhood is 
eternal, He creates human kind. When you come down 
to the days of the great Prophets, like Isaiah and 



THE CENTRE OF LIFE 55 

Ezekiel, you will find that with the vision of God is also 
the vision of intelligences, of life flowing into God, as 
God's life flows into those about Him. Here again, in 
this picture that we have just been getting before us 
from the pages of the Book of the Revelation, we have 
the same thing: God in the midst of a multitude, the 
unifying force of that multitude. The comforting thing 
about this picture is that it is a promise, — it is of that 
which is going to be; and also it is a clear declaration to 
us how all men are going to be welded into one great 
family. There is no other way, absolutely no other way, 
except through recognition of God, through men's 
losing their lives in contemplation of Him. The result 
of such contemplation is that we get the completeness 
of God's forgiveness. 

The white robes ! — here again, what comfort there is 
in the thought ! — the white robes were not always white; 
there was a time when they were stained, stained 
because man was having his own way; and whenever a 
man has his own way, he gets into trouble. It is certain; 
you know it, and I know it, — that self-will leads to 
sorrow, and to futile effort, and to a stained character. 
But the stained robes become white. How wonderful is 
God's power ! It is far more wonderful that God should 
have given man a power, an ability, to sin, and then, 
after man has sinned, to cleanse him and make him as 



56 THE CENTRE OF LIFE 

though he had not sinned, than for Him to have created 
a being who could not sin; because a man with a will 
and a power of choice is greater than the greatest of 
puppets. We are not God's puppets; we are His chil- 
dren, made in His image and conformed to His likeness. 
Forgiveness — what does forgiveness mean? Does it 
mean the flowing-in upon the soul of a wave of comfort, 
and a separating of the mind from the bitterness and 
the misery of the memory of sin? God forbid! For- 
giveness sometimes is signalized by God by His plung- 
ing us into the very depths of darkness; but a darkness 
that can be borne, and a darkness that has a perfecting, 
a transfiguring power. Forgiveness means the separa- 
tion of man from the control of sin; and forgiveness in 
its ultimate perfection means the righteousness of God, 
— something that is for us here, now; not something 
that is to come in some remote and timeless age. God's 
gifts are as instantaneous and as swift and as fiery as the 
lightning. 

The whole consummation of life is bound up, in this 
image, with God: Salvation unto God that sitteth upon 
the throne, and unto the Lamb. What does salvation 
mean? Why, it means the rising up of all those latent 
powers of life which God has planted in us, and which 
eventually will find complete expression and use; until 
man is so wonderful a being that, on looking back on 



THE CENTRE OF LIFE 57 

his beginning, he will marvel that so great and so 
majestic a life could spring and be developed from so 
mean a beginning. We are only, the best of us, less 
than half made; God is shaping us now. Man is God's 
great creative venture, — and all creation groaneth and 
travaileth together in fain, waiting for the manifestation of 
the sons of God. Beloved, now are we the sons of God ; 
but we have not any conception of what we are going 
to be. The strength and the beauty and the joy that are 
latent in human life only declare themselves when we 
put ourselves to the test, and aim at the impossible. 
Christianity is still young in the world, — Heaven knows 
how young it is even in the greatest saint. 

That is the meaning of salvation. It is not any 
trumpery self -saving; it is not the preservation of 
certain things in ourselves that we have now; but it is 
an endless progress, a rising up to heights that we cannot 
even dream of. God is the centre of life, yesterday, and 
to-day, and forever. 

And what is God? Well, we know this about God, at 
any rate, — that He is a being whom we cannot analyze. 
If our God is solely the result of our theologies, our 
studies, then He is less than we are. If God is not 
beyond analysis, then He is not big enough for mankind. 
Here we have the picture of the God and the multitude, 
— we have life flowing into God, and they are lost in 



58 THE CENTRE OF LIFE 

Him. They know Him, and they know Him best who 
know that they have much more to know of Him than 
they have already come to know. This is the thought in 
worship, — kneeling in God's Presence and pouring out 
our life toward Him, knowing that in communion will 
come new visions of God. Worship is a thing that we 
neglect. Yes, we say our prayers; but saying our prayers 
is only the beginning of worship. God as Personality 
rises out of the midst of this vision, — Personality uniting 
persons into a great, a new, a corporate personality, — 
the multitude, which no man could number. 

But supposing that you and I had a very profound 
conviction that God was present and in His world, — 
it would not do us much good unless we knew what sort 
of a God we were in the presence of. Mere presence is 
valueless; character, however, added to presence means 
something. And so what I have called the chief char- 
acteristic of Christ is mentioned here. He is the self- 
giver; He is the Lamb, — always offering Himself. 
Some of us, perhaps from false associations, rather shy 
away from the expression, self-sacrifice; let us substitute 
another word, let us call it self -donation, — self-sacrifice is 
too exclusively bound up with the thought of pain. Of 
course, pain is always an element in self-offering, 
because whenever we give the highest, we subdue the 
lowest, and the lowest strikes us with its weapons, and 



THE CENTRE OF LIFE 59 

we suffer. I like to use the word self -donation, because it 
brings out the joy of self -giving; and I want you just 
for a moment to glance at the joy of God in giving 
Himself to mankind, the joy of the lover, giving himself 
to the beloved : God so loved the world that He gave His 
only begotten Son. And the Lamb, the character of God, 
is working in us to-day as completely and as fully — 
indeed, with cumulative force — as when Christianity 
was in its pristine vigour. Ah, if I had power to do it, 
I would unveil before you the Christ, and I would say 
simply, "See the Christ stand" and then leave you. 

That is what the world needs to-day. It needs men 
who, by their own experience in Christ, can sweep away 
the veils that hide Him from others' eyes, so that they 
will be able to have new life and new experience in Him. 
Christ is the most active, the most real person in the 
society of men to-day; so far as the nation has coherence, 
it is due to the activity of the Christ. The Christ is not 
merely working in and with men, but beyond them; 
there are unexplored reaches of God which are waiting 
for us to discover and take into our experience. He is the 
most experienced, the most modern man, is the Christ; 
in touch with all that is good, all that is promising, 
fostering and caring for us, even the smoking flax and 
the bruised reed. 

I have no new gospel to give you, but I have the old, 



60 THE CENTRE OF LIFE 

old gospel, — Christ: and in this intricate, complicated 
life of to-day, you find in Him the sole hope, and the sole 
unifying and interpreting element. 

You and I call ourselves Christians; and we are 
Christians, thank God! We do but poorly; but then, 
Christ is so considerate and so ready to take even the 
least that is given Him in sincerity, that we know He is 
beside us, — that He is beside the sorrowing and the sick, 
and those who are distressed in conscience. But if we 
want our Christianity to be a more splendid thing and a 
more true thing than it has been, then we must draw 
nearer to the Christ. That is the whole essence of 
Christianity. Christianity is devotion to persons, with 
Christ as the centre — an imperfect definition, but I 
think you perceive the underlying meaning. Conse- 
quently there is only one commandment in the Christian 
Church, and that is, love; — love of God, love of your 
fellow man. Be devoted to God, and be devoted to your 
brother. Christianity is devotion to persons, with God 
as manifested in Christ as the centre; consequently, the 
greatest sin against Christianity is idolatry. Idolatry 
has always been the greatest sin against religion. It was 
so amongst the Jews. What is the first recorded sin? 
Why, it was the momentary withdrawal of allegiance to 
God in order that the culprits might give allegiance to 
a thing. Putting things before persons, — that is the 



THE CENTRE OF LIFE 61 

meaning of idolatry. In the New Testament there is a 
great and striking illustration of idolatry: idolatry did 
not cease with golden calves and images of wood and 
stone; idolatry is what it was. It is the substitution of 
things for persons; and when God comes to judge men 
and to give people their true place, all those who have 
substituted things for persons — whether among the 
Jews, or among the Chinese, or among the Americans — 
will be grouped together in one miserable mob. A young 
man comes to Christ on one occasion. He is a choice 
person, whom Christ loves as soon as He sees him; a 
man of means, we would say; a philanthropic person, 
in all probability, — he may not have given away much 
of his principal, but a good deal of his income. 
Christ's whole soul goes out to this man, and He says 
to him: You can be a perfect man, if you wish; the 
trouble with you at the present moment is that the 
emphasis of your life is on the side of things and not of 
persons; go sell all you have, give to the poor, and come 
and follow me. The young man went away deeply 
troubled, because he had great possessions; and that is 
called the great refusal. That is idolatry; it is choosing 
things before persons, choosing the material before the 
spiritual. One always hopes about that young man that 
in solitude he repented him of his mistake, and brushed 
away that which kept him from God, and chose God 



62 THE CENTRE OF LIFE 

and His service instead of the things that were hiding 
and obscuring God. 

What are our own idolatries? We have many; and 
our idols have from time to time claimed our allegiance. 
But we do not wish to be idolaters; we wish to be free 
men. S. John's warning (the last words almost that he 
wrote), as he closed his letter to those who were dear to 
him, is very pertinent to-day. It is again present in the 
thought that Christ is the centre of life, and that if we 
substitute anything for Him, we are idolaters. S. John 
says: "We know that the Son of God is come, and 
hath given us an understanding, that we may know 
Him that is true : and we are in Him that is true, even 
in His Son, Jesus Christ. This is the true God, and 
eternal life. " Then he ends by the appeal of a father 
to his little children, — "My little children, guard your- 
selves from idols." 

One of the idols of the American nation is its public 
school system, — the idea that through the imparting of 
what is called education (but which is really mere infor- 
mation), men are prepared for citizenship in the State 
and are fitted to take their stand with God. Am I right 
or am I wrong in saying that an undue emphasis has 
been given in these United States of ours to the merely 
intellectual in education? — it is so far above the edu- 
cational system of any other civilized country. Religion 



THE CENTRE OF LIFE 63 

or religious information, is not arbitrarily ruled out of 
the schools, but the State says, — It is impossible for us 
to participate in religious instruction in the schools, 
because — Because of what? — because of a divided 
Church. If we had a unified Church, then there could 
not be secularized education. And although it is true 
that in the case of the State there is an attempt to be 
impartial, ordinarily, when there is an attempt to be 
neutral, it ends in antagonism, expressed or implied. 

Let me give you some instances and illustrations of 
how men of high repute and great scholarship have 
viewed, toward the end of their career, purely secular 
achievement in the realm of thought. In 1896, Lord 
Kelvin was celebrating his jubilee as Professor of 
fifty years' standing; and he made this memorable 
confession: 

"One single word comprises the result of all that I 
have done toward furthering science during the last 
fifty-five years, and this word is failure. I know not one 
iota more to-day about electric and magnetic force, how 
ether and electricity and the weighable substances of 
matter stand to one another, than when I delivered my 
first lecture." 

And, curiously enough, that same year Herbert 
Spencer finished his great Synthetic Philosophy. In the 
last volume he writes as pathetic words as are to be 



64 THE CENTRE OF LIFE 

found in literature, regarding a man's early ambitions 
and their realization: 

"When I started out to do this work, I was filled with 
the inspiration of the thought; but now that I have 
accomplished my purpose, the only satisfaction I have 
is that I have finished something that I made up my 
mind to do." 1 I do not quote his exact words, but that 
is the idea. In other words, he writes across his 
philosophy the word failure; and so far as the genera- 
tion succeeding him is concerned, it has endorsed his 
judgment. 

By itself, science and philosophy are both a cut de sac, 
— and why? Because, taken apart from God, you are 
substituting, not things for persons, but ideas for per- 
sons. A man cannot live on ideas; a man must live on 
personalities. I could give you numberless illustrations; 
but your own hearts will tell you that that which has as 
its sole end a new realization and possession of the 
material, or the acquisition of information can never 
satisfy and feed you. We know that, and yet how 
foolish we are ! We continue to feed ourselves on husks, 
hoping some day to find a husk that will not interfere 
with our digestion. And in the midst of this struggle to 
get the soul's satisfaction, Christ comes to us, and He 
says — I am your sufficiency. 
1 Principles of Sociology, ii., 3, Preface. 



THE CENTRE OF LIFE 65 

Look at the instances in history where men have 
sought for God, have lived in God; read the story of 
their lives and their last words, and you will always find 
satisfied men. Christ lived in God, and in His fellows 
by faith; and although He had the most painful life 
that ever human being had, yet when He came to die 
He was satisfied, as He put His soul anew into His 
Father's hand, fearing nought. And S. Paul, knowing 
that in a few days he was going to die, said : " I have 
fought the good fight, I have finished the course , J have kept 
the faith" And Livingstone, in a tropical jungle, know- 
ing he was never again to see a white face, said: "My 
Jesus, my God, my Lord, my All ! " Person rising to 
personality, the incomplete rising to the complete. 

I know it is quite possible, my friends, that I am speak- 
ing to some whose conception of Christ is not the full 
conception; and yet He is the one figure to Whom you 
turn when difficulties thicken, and when sorrows sub- 
merge you. Whatever be your conception of Christ, be 
true to it ! Christ does not expect you to be unreal, but 
He does expect you to approach Him as far as you are 
able. 

Not long ago, one who had achieved fame in the 
world, but who had not been brought into touch with 
the Christ (had never had Christian experience, as we 
say), had occasion to study the sacred records and to 



66 THE CENTRE OF LIFE 

read Christian literature. His profession necessitated 
that he should do this in connection with the work he 
was undertaking. The result was that toward the end of 
his career, he said : "Now that I have come to know this 
Christ, anything that I have is His; and where He is, I 
want to be." And so he became a Christian. 
My little children, guard yourselves from idols. 



II 

CHRISTIAN THOUGHT AND LIFE 



67 



VI 
A LESSON IN PITY 1 

Straightway one of them ran, and took a sponge and filled it with vinegar, 
and put it on a reed, and gave Him to drink. S. Matt., xxvii, £8. 

THERE is one voluntary act of kindness in the story 
of Christ's Passion. It rises on our gaze as a 
single star on a night of inky blackness. Church and 
State in unholy alliance have done the deed, and crucified 
Love is stretched upon the Cross. The crowd encircling 
the Sinless Sufferer and His two companions in pain 
have not kept silence. Many and confused are the 
voices which have been lifted. Church dignitaries have 
grown hoarse with taunting cries. Soldiers trained in 
the school of violence have let no opportunity go by of 
exercising their coarse wit. No word of pity has broken 
the monotony of heartless cries save when the dying 
robber, melting into penitence, vindicates the innocence 
of Christ and in his humble appeals recognizes in this 
Victim a King with the honors of a Kingdom in His 

x The substance of a meditation given during Holy Week at S. 
Stephen's Church, Boston. 



70 A LESSON IN PITY 

gift. The horror of the noon- tide night has checked 
the storm of hate and envy. The three hours of darkness 
are drawing to a close when for the fifth time on the 
Cross Christ's lips, now drawn and parched with burn- 
ing thirst, are parted that the words "I thirst" may 
escape. Not all caught the two syllables which told of 
His pain and need, following as they did close on the cry 
"Eloi, Eloi, Lama Sabacthani?" And while some of 
those who stood by were exclaiming, "This man calleth 
for Elias," one whose ear had been quickened with 
growing pity heard the low-uttered word of pain "and 
straightway ran and took a sponge, and filled it with 
vinegar and put it on a reed, and gave Him to drink. 
The rest said, Let be, let us see whether Elias will come 
to save him." Seemingly a small incident, this. An 
unknown man coming out of obscurity and fading 
away forthwith as soon as his insignificant act of pity 
was finished, touches, with a sponge dipped in vinegar, 
the lips of a dying man. That is all. Small incident 
though it be, it marks the dawn of an era. Since that 
day a ministering angel has walked too and fro with 
tireless feet through our world of pain and sorrow. That 
angel's name is Pity. 

Pity has four distinguishing characteristics. 

1. She is bright-eyed. No Lazarus can lie at her 
gate in hunger and pain. She sees him while he is yet 



A LESSON IN PITY 71 

afar off and goes to meet him. For her, facts have loud 
voices which she cannot fail to heed. "The spoken 
need" is ever "an unspoken request." To importune 
pity is to insult her. The cry, "I thirst," murmured in 
the feeblest accents, whether it come from the cross or 
from out the poorest corner of the meanest alley is all 
sufficient. Others may be deaf to the appeal. Pity is 
quick of ear as well as bright of eye and straightway 
steps out from the crowd equipped for action. 

Christ exhibits the depth as well as the height of pity. 
It was at a marriage feast when the wine came short 
and the Mother of the Lord said to Him: "They have 
no wine." No request was made. The need was ex- 
pressed in simplest terms. But a few moments elapsed 
before He bade the servants "draw out" from six large 
vessels of rich wine and " bear unto the governor of the 
feast." The host was spared the humiliation of having 
insufficient refreshment provided for his guests. The 
depth of pity condescends to prevent embarrassment. 

Another incident tells of the height of pity. Two 
mourning sisters greet their Friend with the words: 
"Lord if thou hadst been here, my brother had not 
died." There is no hesitation. While the tears still 
moisten His cheeks He calls the dead man back to life: 
"Lazarus come forth." And pity shows that it em- 
braces the whole life of man. It touches the highest as 



72 A LESSON IN PITY 

well as the lowest need. It spares the cheek the blush of 
shame and it dries the mourner's tears by flinging wide 
back the gate of death and reuniting soul and body. x 
Busy though pity be in ministering to patent need, she 
has time to explore. "The Son of Man has come to 
seek and to save that which was lost." Her bright eyes 
detect the hidden need as she searches the nooks and 
corners of life. To-day, perhaps, she startles the self- 
satisfied by revealing to them that they are poor and 
naked and blind, but in the same breath telling them 
how they may get the wherewithal for their wants. To- 
morrow she will lay bare the sorrows of the paupers 
banished to the bleak islands of a ship-studded harbor 
or in irresistible tones appeal for home care and love 
for the epileptic. 2 No one thought that such need 
existed until pity went on an exploring tour and told 
what she saw. Pity is a critic, but more than a critic; 
she both exposes the flaw and suggests the remedy. 

2. Bright-eyed pity is also quick-footed. That un- 
known minister of Christ's need ran. But not so fast as 
to trip. Pity is quick but not hurried, nimble but not 
stumbling. She is too much in earnest to be hasty, 
"Mine hour is not yet come." "When Jesus heard that 
Lazarus was sick, He abode still two days in the same 

1 See Preachers of the Age, by Alex. McLaren, D.D., p. 19, etc. 
• A Colony of Mercy, Julie Sutter. 



A LESSON IN PITY 73 

place where He was." Our pity for those who are under- 
neath in the melee of nineteenth century competitive 
life, must no more betray us into the acceptance of the 
first social panacea proposed than into anarchism. 
" The temptation to calculate rather than to analyze — 
to fly at once to a mechanical process rather than pause 
for one which is laborious and demands original re- 
search, is active in many of the sciences." 1 Whatever 
results may ensue upon such methods are at the best of 
very restricted value. Pity is quick to move toward the 
need but she runs circumspectly and with sure as well as 
nimble foot. She estimates the probable time at her 
disposal and regulates her movements accordingly, 
bearing in mind that unripe fruit is sour and poisonous, 
that premature caresses are blows. 

3. Bright-eyed, nimble-footed Pity is quick-witted, 
fertile in expedients. 

The scene of the need has been reached. What must 
be done to give relief is obvious. That thirst must be 
quenched. But how? That is the question. Ordinary 
methods will not do. The jar of sour wine is at hand, 
but those lips are beyond the reach of the longest arm. 
Ah! Here is a sponge and yonder a reed. Dip the 
sponge into the wine. Now fit it on the reed — so. 
Raise it to His mouth. There ! It is done and it was 
1 Bosanquet. 



74 A LESSON IN PITY 

very simple was it not? Yes, to the quick wits of pity. 
Pity must not lose her head or she will be unable to use 
her arm. She will fail to see the reed and sponge and 
with shaking hand will try to minister the drink from 
cup or jar only to spill it on the ground. Then the poor 
lips will have to remain parched. Much good material is 
wasted by those who with untrained minds and im- 
mature judgment desire and strive to perform works 
of mercy. Before Christ came to earth as man, pity 
was an emotion but not a power. Her fingers were " law- 
stiffened." She saw cause and effect ever working with 
deadly certainty. She knew not that any hand but that 
of God could arrest the process of decay or assuage the 
pain. Miracles were wrought by the hand of the Son of 
Man as man to show that man could exercise as well as 
feel pity. Miracles ceased in order to set pity's wits at 
work. The need was patent. The possibility of relief 
had been revealed. There is the sick man. Here are 
various elements of nature. Find the happy combina- 
tion that will prove effectual. So pity works hand in 
hand with science. The soul of scientific surgery is pity. 
Unintelligible becomes intelligible healing. 

The first trained Christian nurse was that man who 
gave Christ a sip of sour wine; the first hospital appli- 
ances were the sponge and reed that afforded the means 
of ministering the needed refreshment. 



A LESSON IN PITY 75 

4. Bright-eyed, nimble-footed, quick-witted Pity is 
indifferent to obstacles. She believes that there is a 
remedy for every evil under the sun. To her a dis- 
covered need is a proof of an existing relief. She heeds 
not the cry of the crowd: "Let be, let us see whether 
Elias will come to save Him." Laissez-faire, the "let 
alone" doctrine is in her eyes only refined brutality. 
She will rest content only when all expedients have been 
tried; and effort follows effort in untiring succession. 
Day by day new secrets are unlocked by the persever- 
ance of those who will allow themselves to forget 
neither the unsolved problem nor the God of love who 
holds out the solution to him who will not tire in his 
determination to secure relief for the suffering brethren. 

The cost of contending with obstacles must be paid. 
Pity is not seldom weary. The gifts of healing which 
Christ bestowed were not "like pennies scattered from 
the purse of a millionaire." He spent Himself on the 
wants of others. So will it be with pity as long as this 
world of ours bears the character of the "Sphere of 
Suffering." No true relief can be given without con- 
scious, wearying effort. 

It was for the unknown man of long ago to minister 
to Christ in the flesh as He hung upon the Cross. It is 
for us to minister to Him in His suffering members. 
There are many distressed souls and aching hearts as 



76 A LESSON IN PITY 

well as tortured bodies to which it is our privilege to 
contribute what we are able. We must look to it that 
we bear the four marks which distinguish angels of pity. 
Those are the ablest ministers of mercy who are con- 
stantly and consciously beneficiaries of God's mercy. 
Having received, we reflect our gift. Human pity is the 
faint echo of the infinite pity of God which floods the 
heavens and whose overflow dispensed by Christlike 
men, is more than sufficient for the needs of earth. 

Two suggestions of a practical nature may help us 
more worthily to fulfil our function as ministers of pity: 
1. We must look nearest to ourselves for our chief est 
opportunities for bringing pity to bear on life. 2. We 
must never despise the privilege of giving something 
even less than a cup of cold water — perhaps that of 
moistening fevered lips with thin, sour wine. No need 
is so small that it may be passed by. Neither may we 
ever say, "There is nothing to be done here. The need 
is beyond reach." There is always a reed and a sponge 
somewhere. Let us look until we have found them, 
fitted them together, and effaced the evil. 



VII 
THE STRONG YOUNG MAN 1 

/ have written unto you, young men, because ye are strong, and the word 
of God abideth in you, and ye have overcome the wicked one. 1 John ii, 1%. 

THE glory of childhood is innocency, the glory of 
youth is strength, the glory of old age is sanctified 
experience. The life that prizes the earlier glories moves 
naturally into the last and highest. The writer of the 
words which I have quoted was a man of this sort. 
Though aged, measured by years, he was perpetually 
young in that he carried into his last days the best 
contained in the days that preceded. The simplicity of 
a child and the eagerness of young manhood were still 
his when he had grown old. I have never seen a picture 
of S. John representing him as an old man. When in 
another writing he wished to depict ideal manhood he 
described it well. "His head and hairs," he said of the 
One he described, "were white like wool, as white as 
snow; his eyes as a flame of fire," — that is to say the 

'Preached at the Union Service Association Gymnasium, Manila, 
Sunday, October 24, 1909. 

77 



78 THE STRONG YOUNG MAN 

representative man combined the experience of an 
unsullied life, with the accumulated fiery penetration 
of keen-eyed youth; his future was as rich as his past. 

Innocency, vigor, and the maturity of a life that had 
been grandly lived were the characteristics of S. John. 
For this reason when he speaks, the attention of the 
young man is arrested. He presents neither the gall of 
cynicism nor the crumbled hopes of senile decay — on 
the contrary he proclaims a message which only the 
receptivity, the strength, and the adventuresomeness of 
youth is able to bear. Who like the young man can 
respond to the challenge to live as a son of God, to 
clothe himself with righteousness as with a garment, and 
to lay down his life for his brethren as a simple duty? 

This is the time and occasion to consider manhood 
glorying in its strength. The sole justification of the 
fine building which shelters us is to foster strength in 
manhood, and then to inspire the strong young man to 
honor his strength by spending it how and where it 
will best tell. 

When we young men covet strength, we covet our 
due. The inheritance is ours; let us rise and enter into 
it. If anything be lacking in the end, let not the fault 
be ours. A young man without strength is like clouds 
without water, coals without fire, flowers without 
beauty. 



THE STRONG YOUNG MAN 79 

Human strength is of a threefold character — physical, 
mental, spiritual. Each aspect of strength is more or less 
dependent upon and sensitive to the condition of the 
other two. A sound mind asks for a sound body as the 
normal medium of expression; and mind and body at 
their best form a feeble alliance unless a noble spirit 
animates both. Character, though it towers so as to be 
the most independent part of man, finds in a sound 
mind and able body its best instrument for action. 

The development of body alone creates brute strength, 
and when all is done leaves man a little lower than a 
lion. The cultivation of mind alone issues in rhetoric, 
logic, and skill, and when intellect has ascended its soli- 
tary throne, man is a little less accurate than a phono- 
graph or a printing-press. The exclusive care of the 
spirit, as far as such a thing is possible, creates im- 
practical idealism, and its owner becomes a little inferior 
to a ghost — though it should be added that the spirit is 
so towering as to triumph over limitations of body and 
mind and to use them to its advantage. 

Tripartite being means tripartite strength, carefully 
fostered, wisely adjusted, perfectly unified. The body is 
to be developed as an instrument of the mind and a 
shrine for the soul; and until the mind is the servant of 
the spirit with its normal endowments and directive 
motives, it is like a ship without a helmsman. 



80 THE STRONG YOUNG MAN 

In order to have our subject clearly before us, let us 
sketch a picture of the strong young man we would like 
to be. In the first place he has a body like that of a 
David — "my feet are like hart's feet and mine arms can 
breakeven a bow of steel." His muscular power makes 
him swift in motion, skilful in action, invincible in con- 
flict. His limbs, ruddy and glowing with health, are 
more beautiful to look at than the statue by a Greek 
sculptor. Lines of culture mark his face. His general 
knowledge is broad and accurate. His mind is stored 
with well-assorted information and he is expert in at 
least one department of learning. He is at once keen 
and judicial, a pupil and a teacher, simple with the 
unlearned and profound with the scholar, humorous 
and grave. Added to and crowning his gifts of mind and 
body is a trained conscience. Shining from his eyes is 
that combination of trustworthiness and independence, 
self-respect and modesty, blamelessness and moral 
aspiration, friendliness and reserve, which are the choice 
endowments of the spirit through whose open door God 
enters into man and takes up His abode there. We set 
him down as a man of character, whose reputation is 
the reflection of interior beauty and virtue. 

This then is our ideal. I am glad to think that it is 
not a fancy picture. I know just such men. When the 
growing generation matures there will be many more. 



THE STRONG YOUNG MAN 81 

It is to further the young man's ambition to be strong, 
as I have described strength, that this Association 
building stands. Its equipment provides facilities for 
improving every part of human personality, and that is 
one reason why the Y. M. C. A. is a successful organiza- 
tion. It treats man as man. 

We must not rest here. Admiration of the beautiful 
falls short of our whole duty. We must appropriate it, 
aiming at least to approximate the strength which we 
admire. I like S. Paul's phrase as commonly rendered — 
"Covet the best gifts." Covetousness is passion, in- 
satiable until it has gained its purpose. In this sense 
covet strength. 

You cannot fail to notice that the Association stands 
for some very definite things. It is not a medley, a 
confusion of good things flung toward the young man, a 
luxuriant profusion from which he may pick what strikes 
his fancy. It is a carefully selected choice of that which 
experience has shown to be of highest value. There are 
marks of discipline everywhere. Out of good things the 
best are chosen and those who join the institution must 
limit themselves to them. 

This illustrates admirably the way to get strength. 
It is to be had only by resolved limitation. By deliberate 
act of choice we must set our own boundaries. Every 
selection involves rejection. Though superficially con- 



82 THE STRONG YOUNG MAN 

sidered the growing man seems to give up more than he 
accepts, it is not so. He builds a fence behind him which 
shuts out the infertile desert, but before him lies the 
boundless plain with no end but the horizon, where earth 
melts into heaven, and to-day joins hands with to- 
morrow. 

It is fatally easy to accept everything attractive that 
comes our way in the shape of possessions and opportuni- 
ties. But if we do it we listen to the call of the wild 
and revert to civilized savagery, accepting the lower 
after knowing the higher. The difference between culti- 
vation and wildness consists in selection and limitation 
as distinguished from profusion and confusion. When 
pleasant things offer themselves to the young man he 
must question them and ascertain whether or not they 
will contribute to his strength. He ought to suspect 
profusion. A full life must be well ordered; it is never 
crowded. Mere profusion is luxury than which no 
firmer fetters for a young man's strength can be forged. 
Luxury is unassorted, unused, and frequently unusable, 
wealth. 

Limitation in one direction means enlargement in an- 
other. By pruning the branches or nipping the buds, 
both of them not only valuable but necessary parts 
of the tree, we enrich the fruits. Similarly by pruning 
away superfluous pleasure and superfluous wealth we 



THE STRONG YOUNG MAN 83 

accumulate time and freedom and strength to expend on 
intellectual pursuits or spiritual profit for ourselves and 
others. 

Sometimes our limitations are chosen for us, though be- 
fore they can profit us, by a triumph of appropriation we 
must make them our own as though they were our free 
choice. A man like the Scotch preacher Matheson is af- 
flicted with blindness. His limitation proves a stimulus 
rather than a hindrance to the operation of his brilliant 
mind. All the strength that belonged to his eyesight, or, 
to coin a word, outsight, seemed to run into his insight. 

Lincoln was the product of adversity and straight- 
ened environment. It served to develop his body, to 
quicken his mind, and to simplify his character. The 
product of storm, he became the master of storm. 

The danger which threatens most of us comes not 
from too little but from too much. We shall reach our 
best by greater discipline rather than by increased indul- 
gence. We allow ourselves, perhaps, to think too much 
of what we call the deprivations and inconveniences of 
our condition in life. What right have we young men to 
demand that we have butter on our bread seven days 
in the week? The ability to endure and even enjoy 
hardness without self-pity or self-applause in circum- 
stances where ease may be had for the asking is the 
sign of a master character. 



84 THE STRONG YOUNG MAN 

True manhood has too much self -reverence to lounge 
through life. What is to be said of the young man who 
abuses the elective system and insults his mental endow- 
ment by choosing the easiest courses at college because 
they will call for least effort? It is he who in after life 
seeks for a position in which he renders a minimum 
service in return for a maximum salary and thinks him- 
self ill paid. 

Strength is not given us for self gratification but for 
use in service. Service ought always to be superior to 
salary. Master workers can never be adequately paid 
for their labor. Their service is priceless, and in that 
respect is like God's wine and milk that can be bought 
only without money and without price. The world 
does not contain enough wealth to pay for what one 
good man has done. We cannot associate the thought 
of payment with a great service without feeling that we 
have been guilty of an irreverence. What salary could 
pay a Shakespeare or a Lincoln for the product of his 
life? What would be a fair remuneration for the work 
that Jesus Christ wrought, or S. Paul? Such a proposi- 
tion is unthinkable. We shrink from it. The kind of 
labor that the world stands in need of is that which 
society, not the worker, recognizes to be beyond price. 
Every strong young man may give it. 

There are a few things where resolved limitation is 



THE STRONG YOUNG MAN 85 

necessary, of which it seems worth while to speak in con- 
crete terms, — the use of legitimate indulgences, the use 
of intoxicating liquor, the use of money. 

It is unworthy of manhood and crippling to liberty 
to allow our preferences, indulgences, or pleasures to 
dictate terms to us. Something is wrong when a young 
man finds himself able to do his work only if his physical 
environment is just so. Youth ought to be superior to 
conditions if not wholly independent of them. Old- 
maidishness is not becoming in a young man. I am not 
interested in taking out a brief against smoking, but I 
raise the question whether the indulgence does not 
interfere with the sort of freedom every man should 
prize the moment that it dictates terms to him and says, 
"you cannot do your work buoyantly and comfortably 
unless you have a cigar at such and such times." Again, 
with reference to recreation, is not a man losing per- 
spective who allows his diversions to assume the im- 
portance of a vocation in his thoughts and practice? 
The God-given faculty of play is too sacred to be 
slighted or frowned out of view by beetle-browed 
disciplinarians, but it is also too valuable to be changed 
from a recuperative joy to an exhausting profession. 

This is not the occasion in which to go deeply into 
the question of the use of intoxicants. All I would say 
is, that if you believe in their use as a beverage, make it 



86 THE STRONG YOUNG MAN 

a disciplined use. Never drink in the mornings, refuse to 
drink simply because a friend asks you, do not insult 
your digestion by the preprandial cocktail habit, — in 
short have some definite rule and abide by it; otherwise 
you are in a fair way to become what no man ever 
planned to be but which many become — a drunkard. 
What would you think of a man who had no rule re- 
garding meals but who ate what and how and when his 
whim suggested? He would doubtless be a big fool 
though no bigger than the careless drinker. For the 
majority of us whose most serious task is to keep the 
body under lest it run riot in animality, there is a grave 
element of danger in pouring alcoholic fuel upon the 
fires of youth which already are burning with full flame. 
The disciplined use of money is a vexatious matter for 
generous-hearted men — and our nation is full of them. 
But in no department of life is greater discretion needed. 
Money is a symbol of labor wrought in the sweat of the 
human brow. It is too sacred to use as a toy. For this 
reason do not gamble. I have ceased to be interested 
in trying to find out why gambling is immoral, but I 
know it is always coarsening to and frequently destruc- 
tive of character. That, however, is not the thought 
which I have in mind. We are considering how we may 
conserve strength in our relation to money. Are the 
winnings of a poker game or of bridge whist an asset? 



THE STRONG YOUNG MAN 87 

Do you attach value to them? Would you feel you were 
honoring God by giving them to Him in the Sunday 
offertory? Would you dare purchase a gift for your 
betrothed with them, and if so, what sort of a wife is 
she going to make if she accepts, and attaches value to, 
a token of love which has cost you nothing? 

These specific instances of resolved limitation are 
only such as would naturally occur to the mind of one 
who has as his purpose in life to make of himself the 
strongest man possible, and to use his strength, when 
acquired, for the highest ends conceivable. The world 
holds no thoughtful young man who has not entertained 
such an ambition. It may have struck across his 
imagination unencouraged, soon dismissed, as a fitful 
shaft of sunlight on a cloudy day, or it may have come 
to him as a bride to her lover's arms, sought for, longed 
for and to be nurtured while life lasts. In any event 
high aspiration is youth's heritage for it is the vision 
which necessarily accompanies the endowment of 
strength, and happy is the man who surrenders himself 
to it blithely and trustfully. 

Need I point out that discipline in meats and drinks, 
in pleasures and emotions, promotes a sound body? 
Any football player can tell you that. Let us accept it 
as proven and go a step further. The search for sound- 
ness of body, which is unevenly but earnestly pur- 



88 THE STRONG YOUNG MAN 

sued in our day, throws on those who succeed in the 
quest an enormous and uncompromising responsibility. 
Physical strength runs riot unless mind and character 
keep pace with it. The greater the body's gifts, the 
man's physique or the woman's beauty, the more royal 
must mind and character become, lest the fate of the 
human animal be to fall a little short of a lion in strength 
— or a tigress in beauty. 

The mind in our day has opportunities unnumbered. 
Study begun in childhood should last while the mind 
lasts. Study is mind-discipline, and the true end of 
education is to create an automatic habit of study. Do 
not, then, waste your mind on a diet of newspapers, 
magazines, and novels. If you do you will exhibit a mind 
not dissimilar from many modern drawing-rooms, 
filled with a confusion of all sorts of things bearing no 
relation to one another, the whole as contradictory of 
art as of restfulness and order. A study of fact is neces- 
sary to a tidy mind; a study of the imaginative is neces- 
sary to a beautiful mind. Always keep going a volume 
of history or biography; and by its side lay the great 
poets. Under this discipline the mind gains in accuracy 
and vision. As a man reads, so will he think. Oh for an 
army of accurate men who have vision ! 

Now I hasten to a survey of the strengthening of the 
spiritual side of man where rests his fate as a character. 



THE STRONG YOUNG MAN 89 

Here, too, the inexorable law of limitation stands guard- 
ing the gate making the way narrow and straight. The 
moral law allows of no trifling. Its terms are explicit and 
in its broad outlines distinguishable to the least dis- 
cerning. We must utter our everlasting yea to all that is 
good, our everlasting nay to all that is bad. We must 
give particular heed to that side of our character that 
is most rebellious. Resolved limitation here must be 
rigorous and renewed. Not that in this firm and reiter- 
ated resolution alone is to be found victory. It would be 
futile were it not that above man's poor best towers 
God's perfection working for and in us both by direct 
touch and through the law of human fellowship. 

You who covet strength of character, remember that 
there is no substitute for the Church of God, which is 
the representative fellowship at once human and divine. 
I do not say that you cannot get any of God's gifts save 
through the Church, but I do say that there are priceless 
gifts that come through organized Christianity which 
are to be had through no other channel. Even the re- 
ligious side of the Y. M. C. A. is no substitute for the 
Church and the Church's worship. If you say, "the 
Bible class of the Association is enough for me," you 
are aiding the Association to tell a lie, for its solemn 
assertion is that it is an adjunct of all the Churches, a 
rival to none. Were it a question, which it is not likely 



90 THE STRONG YOUNG MAN 

to be, of choosing between the religious opportunities 
of the Association and those of the Church your duty- 
would be to the latter. The choice would be, as it were, 
between nurse and mother. 

I have kept the greatest to the last. As there can be 
no substitute for the Church neither can there be a 
substitute for personal fellowship with the Church's 
Head, the strong young man Jesus Christ, our Lord. 
Sentimentality has sometimes tended to blur the in- 
comparable virility of Jesus, touching His character 
with an effeminacy that is foreign to Him. Look at 
Him in the splendor of His human body, with a mind 
that has never had a rival, at whose sayings the wisdom 
of the ages has kindled, whose character, even in its 
untranslated, antique setting has power to make young 
men, forgetting all but the single thought that He calls 
them, fling their lives at His feet with the abandon of a 
lover offering himself to a bride. He is still the Strong 
Young Man, with eyes like a flame of fire, called away 
from earth in the perfection of His youthful strength 
that youth might be forever enthroned in Heaven; and 
yet His hair is as white as snow, for He carries in His 
bosom the experience of the human race, so that whoso- 
ever goes to Him goes with the confidence that He 
understands. It is He who calls young men to build up 
their strength and to conserve it under the benediction 



THE STRONG YOUNG MAN 91 

of His laws. It is He who challenges them to use it with 
boldness against the wickedness of our day in behalf of 
the weak and oppressed according to the bidding of His 
will. The fate of the world depends from generation to 
generation on the strong young man glorying in his 
strength. 



VIII 
A PLEA FOR FAIRNESS 1 

O God, Who didst plan the Gospel for an undivided Church, refuse 
not, because of the misunderstandings of its message which rend the 
unity of Christendom, to continue Thy saving work in the broken 
order of our making. Prosper the labors of all Churches bearing the 
Name of Christ and striving to further righteousness and faith in Him. 
Help us to place the truth above our conception of it, and joyfully to 
recognize the presence of Thy Holy Spirit wherever He may choose to 
dwell among men. Teach us wherein we are sectarian in our conten- 
tions, and give us grace humbly to confess our fault to those whom in 
past days our Communion has driven from its fellowship by ecclesias- 
tical tyranny, spiritual barrenness, or moral inefficiency, that we may 
become worthy and competent to bind up in the Church the wounds of 
which we are guilty, and so to hasten the day when there will be one 
flock under one Shepherd, Jesus Christ our Lord. 

T WOULD make a plea to-night for fairness in all rela- 
-*■ tions of life, especially in the sphere of religion. I 
prefer not to take a text, but rather to point to the 
Incarnation as a justification of what I say. It is God's 
fairness to man that demands responsive fairness on the 

1 Preached at Westminster Abbey on the Eighth Sunday after Trinity, 
17th July, 1910. 

92 



A PLEA FOR FAIRNESS 93 

part of man to God and of man to man. God, having 
called into existence a world in which misery and sin, 
from whatever cause, find place, could not, in fairness 
to Himself or mankind, do otherwise than become the 
Son of Man among the sons of men that the sons of men 
might become the sons of God, both in name and in 
deed. Fairness is an aspect of love — God coming into 
weakness to make it strong, dying for His enemies to 
make them His friends; this He must do or deny His 
nature. 

It is strange that it is conspicuously in the sphere of 
religion, particularly a religion with such a foundation as 
Christianity, that unfairness should flourish. Bigotry 
and fanaticism, enthusiasm run riot, are mainly ecclesi- 
astical sins. In no other department of life is prejudice 
more accentuated or loyalty more belligerent than 
within the boundaries of Christendom. Unfairness it 
was that stood on the threshold of Christianity when it 
was born, erecting a barrier to prevent the progress of 
Jesus Christ into the hearts of men, and shaping the 
cross on which He was to die. Because of corrupt tradi- 
tion which formed the canon of judgment, at the very 
moment when He was aiding the needy and stretching 
out a hand of mercy to heal afflicted humanity, He was 
unfairly judged by those over whom He would have 
poured showers of blessing. The offence drew from Him 






94 A PLEA FOR FAIRNESS 

the searching remonstrance — "Judge not according to 
appearance, but judge righteous judgment." Time 
would fail me to give even a brief epitome of the history 
of unfairness in the life of the Christian Church from its 
beginning until this very day. One single fact is illus- 
trative — whatever fault there may have been among 
those who have been termed heretics, the Church was 
not infrequently unfair in her treatment of them. One 
of our most trusted and careful writers in theology says : 
"Much that we call heresy was only in its origin 
experimental thinking, which was sure to be tried sooner 
or later, and which did not imply moral obliquity in 
those who had recourse to it." 1 

It is distasteful to spend time upon the consideration 
of unfairness, but it is necessary. It is not intentional 
unfairness, however, that I have in mind. There is only 
oneway to deal with that wherever it appears, — to smite 
it with a sword of flame. Unintentional unfairness is 
quite another matter. We may be guilty of it, though 
blind to the fact, so subtle a sin is it. We may even look 
upon it as a virtue, and give it shelter under the noble 
name of loyalty. It is probably due to the overrating 
of our individual powers of perception, and at the same 
time to the underrating of the powers of perception in 
others. There is always more in the various manifesta- 
1 Ckristologies Ancient and Modern, by William Sanday, D.D., p. 22. 



A PLEA FOR FAIRNESS 95 

tions of life than any one man or any one group can 
perceive. That which we see is not the object under 
scrutiny, but the object as it appears to us. It is our 
subjective estimate of the object or that for which the 
object stands. Behind all is God's idea with its infinite 
depth. None but a man with perfectly developed powers, 
who has viewed his object at every angle, as well as 
from above and below, can be wholly fair — and where 
is such a man? The individual is complete only as a 
part of the social whole. When all have seen, the com- 
posite result may approximate righteous judgment. 

I have already said that fairness is a phase of love. 
It is love in the act of measuring persons and things. 
Therefore fairness suffereth long, and is kind; fairness 
envieth not; fairness vaunteth not itself, is not puffed up, 
doth not behave itself unseemly, seeketh not its own, is 
not provoked, taketh no account of evil, rejoiceth not in 
unrighteousness, but rejoiceth with the truth. Fairness 
is one of the highest gifts of God's Spirit, that "right 
judgment in all things" which we covet and pray for. 
We admire it in others as the crowning gift of a strong 
character and wish that we too were able — 

To deliver true judgment aright at the instant, unaided, 
In the strict, level, ultimate phrase. 

Perhaps never before in the course of Christian history 



96 A PLEA FOR FAIRNESS 

has fairness been more essential. Without it there can 
never be unity, strive for it as we may. Both in society 
and in the Church disintegrating forces are busily at 
work. No section of the Church can act alone as the 
conserving force of society. No one part of Christendom 
can stand without tottering unless with the support of 
the rest. Comprehension without compromise will be 
the result of universal fairness throughout Christendom. 
There are certain features of fairness which are indis- 
pensable. Let us consider them, first, in relation to those 
who are not like-minded with us, against whom we have 
prejudice, from whom we are separated by a gulf of 
misunderstanding and ignorance. Obviously there is 
neither merit nor difficulty in being fair to those who 
think as we do, whom we like, and who are friendly 
toward us. To be appreciative of the goodness and 
strength of those we love is the instinctive act of our 
nature. It is otherwise when those concerned are per- 
haps our antipathy. Appreciation is, however, none the 
less our duty. Fairness is the soul of the Golden Rule. 
Your attitude to others must be what it is to yourselves. 
I do not think I misjudge you when I say that your 
attitude to self is distinctly appreciative. You have 
self-respect, a very necessary element in manhood. 
You find something in yourself which is worthy of 
respect at the hands of God and man, and you respect 



A PLEA FOR FAIRNESS 97 

yourself for it. You see your strength first — your ideal 
at any rate — and your weakness after. Very well. Do 
the same thing exactly for those who are farthest 
removed from you in sympathy. 

Study Churches and movements in a Church for the 
sake of discovering strength first. The weaknesses will 
declare themselves readily, especially if the Church or 
school of thought under consideration is other than your 
own. The king of modern science, whose ashes rest in 
this noble edifice, valued the strength of those who dis- 
agreed with him at such high worth that " when a diffi- 
culty or an objection occurred to him he thought it of 
paramount importance to make a note of it instantly, 
because he found hostile facts to be especially evanes- 
cent." No one can realize his own strength until he has 
measured with accurate care the strength of the 
strongest. He damages gravely his own cause if he 
depreciates the strength of others. The man who is 
thus unfair to others is most of all unfair to himself. 
Why should it be deemed impossible for an ecclesiastical 
Bryce to arise in the Anglican Communion and write 
an appreciative history of Methodism, bringing out its 
power and achievements, and reserving such criticism 
as there might be for the last paragraph? Or for an 
ecclesiastical Lowell to appear in the great Roman 
Catholic Church, and write an appreciation of the 



98 A PLEA FOR FAIRNESS 

Anglican Communion, its polity and piety? Such things 
will some day come to pass. 

Once again, it is of the essence of fairness to avoid 
controversy except as a last resort. It would be un- 
balanced for me to advocate the cessation of contro- 
versy for all time; but it would do Christianity a world 
of good if wrangling voices could be hushed for a season. 
The writer whom I have already quoted claims that 
we are apt to need the stimulus of controversy. Some- 
thing worth having is struck out of it. " Controversy is 
as a rule our chief way of securing thoroughness of 
treatment." 1 All that may be true, and yet I am not 
satisfied, as I view the harm that has come to the masses 
from brawling ecclesiastical pens. Do not set me down 
as one who believes or advocates peace at all costs. 
Such an one is an invertebrate — less than a man. Some- 
times we must fight and, when we do, it should be with 
well-tempered weapons, and we should strike to win. 
But, after all, controversy is in religion what war is in the 
clash of nations. In religion our conflict ought not to be 
to rout our opponents, but to win them. Controversy 
for the most part deepens the existing convictions on 
both sides and is apt to prove a bar rather than an aid 
to better understanding. At least there is a better way 
than controversy. Of two good things let us choose the 
x Christologies Ancient and Modern, p. 74. 



A PLEA FOR FAIRNESS 99 

better, and when opportunity comes let the better give 
way to the best. From science we can learn many 
things useful to religion, among others accuracy, but 
perhaps most of all the power of cumulative affirmation. 
Darwin in this way reared the fabric of thought which 
has conquered the world. In his voluminous writings 
hardly a controversial paragraph is to be found. Some 
of his followers dipped their pen into the gall of con- 
troversy, but it was Darwin and not Huxley who was 
the master-builder. 

I recognize that I am advocating a course which 
only the strong can pursue. Those whose most vig- 
orous convictions do not rise above unproductive 
opinion cannot go whither I point. But the strong 
man and the strong Church, such as ours is, must 
go or lose their strength. The one safe place for 
strength is in peril, swinging between risk and op- 
portunity. 

Another feature of fairness is its care of perspective. 
Truth consists in perspective not less than in substance. 
And the city of God, in which we dwell, is rich in 
treasures great and small. The city itself is of pure gold 
— its value is priceless — its walls are of jasper, and its 
foundations are adorned with all manner of precious 
stones. We may not rearrange its order, or confuse its 
adornments with its foundations. In religion great 



100 A PLEA FOR FAIRNESS 

things should be kept in great places, and small things 
in small places. 

To illustrate what I mean, we of the Anglican Com- 
munion expend an enormous amount of valuable vitality 
on trifles. Take, for instance, the ritual question. To 
one Coming, as I do, from the vast Orient, where great 
questions compel our whole attention, questions which 
threaten our very existence, the matter of ritual seems 
a very subsidiary affair. There are two classes of 
people in the world, those who gesticulate and those who 
do not. It is largely a matter of temperament — those 
who gesticulate are the ritualists, those who do not are 
the non-ritualists. The subject is unworthy of much 
attention. 

Fairness recognizes that the City of God is a city 
of magnificent distances. Its height and length and 
breadth are the same — beyond the measurement of 
man; in it are great extremes, not contradictory, but 
complementary. He who lives at one extreme reaches 
his largest liberty when he can visit the opposite extreme 
without losing his way. If, however, he goes only with 
abuse on his lips and missiles in his hands, in God's 
name let him keep to his own corner of the city. It is 
not safe for himself or others to walk abroad. The 
beauty and proportion of the city is spoiled when you 
narrow its boundaries. It is of the essence of unfairness 



A PLEA FOR FAIRNESS 101 

to read out of the city a fellow-citizen because he lives 
in a distant street with which you are not acquainted. 

It goes without saying that the grandest thing 
possible is to keep free of unfairness altogether. But 
the next best thing, when we have failed, is to cultivate 
the art of apology. If a mother is unfair to her child, it is 
as incumbent upon her to apologize as though a senior 
had been wronged. Even when we have been unfair to 
the unfair an apology is due from us to them. Shall we 
not some day have an ecclesiastical Trevelyan who will 
write as an Anglican the story of how and to what 
extent the Mother Church in England is responsible for 
Dissent, and make apology in such terms as the whole 
Church will approve and adopt? There can be no hope 
of reunion with Rome, because of inexorable law, until 
the Papal See lays aside her garb of arrogance and 
apologizes to the rest of Christendom for her long 
history of unfairness, which has made her the provoker 
and maintainer of schism. When that happy day 
dawns, the end of our splintered Christendom will be 
in sight. 

In the consideration of the treasures of others we may 
not forget to appreciate our own. In our Anglican Com- 
munion we are happy in having a clergy who develop in 
their own lives and those of their people the domestic 
type of virtue of which England is justly proud. We 



102 A PLEA FOR FAIRNESS 

must be fair to them, providing them with the support 
that is due. Dependent upon the Abbey are a number of 
benefices, for the most part in the country. I would 
bespeak your liberality, then, for the Poorer Abbey 
Benefices in to-night's offertory. Especially would I 
appeal to my own countrymen in this congregation, 
whose liberality I know well. 

It is possible that some of us have allowed the con- 
sciousness of our privileges to grow dim. Our Church 
probably through our own fault, may seem inferior to 
another, and we wonder whether or not we might not do 
better there rather than here. Let me answer in an 
allegory. The little boy was often weary, for he shared 
the poverty and toil of the farm. But at sunset he 
found pleasure in sitting on the brow of the hill and 
looking far across the valley at a palace all ablaze with 
glory — it was surely a palace, for its windows were 
golden and jewelled. One day he took a journey to the 
palace, and when he reached it, alas! it was only a 
common farmhouse like his own with windows of glass. 
But there were warm hearts within which made it a 
palace. A little playmate gave him a happy day, and 
he told her how he had expected to find there jewelled 
and golden windows. "Ah!" she said, "wait till sunset 
and I can show you a palace across the valley which has 
them." When evening drew near she pointed to a dis- 



A PLEA FOR FAIRNESS 103 

tant house wrapped in the splendor of the sunset. 
"Why," he exclaimed, "that is my home." When he 
reached his father's house after his excursion his parents 
asked him what he had learned. "I have learned," he 
said, "that I live in a palace with jewelled and golden 
windows." 

I dare not close without asking you to be fair to Jesus 
Christ even as He is fair to you. He gave you His best. 
Do you give Him your best, especially you who are 
young with the freshness of life still all your own — 

Our best is poor, nor meets Thy test, 
Still it must be our very best. 

It may be that you have been disturbed in your estimate 
of Jesus Christ by modern thought. Even so is He not 
still worthy of your very best? Is there another who is 
even approximately a substitute for Him? "To whom 
shall we go if not to Thee, O Lord? Thou only hast the 
words of eternal life." An American poet, whose lips 
were a while since hushed in death, once sang: 

If Jesus Christ is a Man 
And only a Man — I say 
Of all mankind I cleave to Him, 
And will cleave to Him alway. 

If Jesus Christ is a God 

And the only God — I swear 

I will follow Him through heaven and hell, 

The earth and the sea and the air. 



104 A PLEA FOR FAIRNESS 

Those who accept Him as their leader as far as they 
honestly can will one day catch fire with the Divine 
enthusiasm which will enable them to know Him as He 
is and constrain them to exclaim: "My only passion is 
He, even He." 



IX 
IT BEHOOVES MAN TO SUFFER 1 

Behoved it not the Christ to suffer these things, and to enter into His 
glory ? Luke xxiv, 26. 

fT^HERE is a law as deep as God that glory or ulti- 
■*■ mate success can be reached only through suffer- 
ing. Suffering and glory belong to the same context. 
However inexplicable the mystery may be, human life 
in order to progress must have suffering or suffering's 
equivalent. By suffering's equivalent I mean some form 
of sustained discipline, voluntary or imposed. The 
world's work has always been done by men who have 
suffered pains or taken pains. The greatest servant, by 
virtue of this inexorable law, must be the greatest 
sufferer — "a Man of sorrows and acquainted with 
grief." Therefore, it not only behoved the Christ to 
suffer, but to suffer to the uttermost. His career was, 
among other things, a vivid illustration of a law as old 
as creation. 

1 Preached in S. Margaret's, Westminster, on the Ninth Sunday after 
Trinity, July 24, 1910. 

105 



106 IT BEHOOVES MAN TO SUFFER 

Yet we are so constituted, that seldom is a man 
plunged into suffering that he is not surprised, even 
when his own fault is at the bottom of his misery, or 
that he is not tempted to resent it as an outrage on his 
liberty. Or, it may be, that while admitting as a general 
theory a fitness in suffering, he deems the particular 
form which is his lot to be ill-suited to his case. Prob- 
ably the best form of suffering is that which happens to 
us by the allotment of fate, or as the result of our 
loyalty to our vocation. 

It would appear to me, however, that no amount of 
reasoning will ever wholly reconcile the human mind 
to suffering, whether one views it as a corrective of our 
inherent defects or a ladder on which one mounts to 
glory, unless we believe our God to be a co-sufferer 
with us. A suffering creation pre-supposes a suffering 
Creator. God suffers both in and with us. The In- 
carnation is an unveiling of God's permanent temper 
toward mankind. It is the complete manifestation of 
God's fellow-feeling, not its beginning. Pain entered 
into the heart of God simultaneously with the concep- 
tion of creation as we know it; a creation groaning and 
travailing, disordered and suffering. Nor will God cease 
to suffer until the last pang of the last man has throbbed 
itself out into joy. 

Furthermore, God not only suffers, but also suffers 



IT BEHOOVES MAN TO SUFFER 107 

to the limit of His capacity, to a Divine degree. So it 
is that, when we have our share of pain, the sympathy of 
God, which comes to us, rises into our lives from be- 
neath. He knows our pain because of having experi- 
enced it in a deeper degree, and out of His experience 
His sympathy rises as a rock to meet and sustain our 
sinking feet. 

In our Lord's sufferings upon earth a new element was 
added, so to speak, to the Divine suffering. God intro- 
duced into His life the whole experience of man as an 
integral part of His being. Henceforth, He suffers not 
merely as God but also as man. 

The physical sufferings of our Lord, great though 
they were, were His least sufferings. His deepest pain 
was within. I have seen the argument used that His 
physical suffering was more acute than we can measure, 
because of the refinement of His nature. Perhaps so. 
On the other hand we must remember that He was 
inured to hardship, and that the body which went up 
to the cross was that of One who had lived a rugged 
life, toughened by manual labor, made robust by 
contact with Nature. He chose a life of health-promot- 
ing poverty, not because it was uncomfortable, but 
because it gave Him freedom. The manual toil in the 
carpenter's shop through the major part of His life, 
and the active, out-of-door existence which marked His 



108 IT BEHOOVES MAN TO SUFFER 

public ministry, prepared Him for the few hours of 
acute suffering that closed His mortal history. Many 
men have had greater and more extended physical 
suffering than Christ. 

Foxes found rest and the birds had their nest 

In the shade of the forest tree; 
Thy couch was the sod, Thou Son of God, 

In the desert of Galilee. 

I love to think of our Lord with a splendid body that 
ignored comfort because of its manly vigor. His 
physical suffering, then, was that of a true man, whose 
nerves were not feminine through nice living. 

Amongst us there is a marked decay of virile hard- 
ness. Comfort is to be had for the stretching out of the 
hand, and we shrink from inconveniences. Our love for 
our children is dangerously indulgent. It is much easier 
to map out and follow a course of discipline for ourselves 
than for those we love. Consequently, the sons of the 
rich are in peril. They are given in the home free entry 
into joy, and are sheltered from — I shall not say physi- 
cal endurance but physical inconvenience. Now, youth 
has no right to ask for butter on its bread seven days in 
the week. Boys should not be encouraged to suppose 
that they are to accept every good or pleasant thing that 
comes their way. Duty and discipline are permanent 
and indispensable features of life, duty and discipline 



IT BEHOOVES MAN TO SUFFER 109 

that make demands upon the body. The inevitable 
pains of life cannot be borne unless we have pre- 
pared ourselves for them by voluntary discipline. It is 
encouraging to find men awakening to this fact. One 
man of prominence, 1 at least, is pressing the truth home 
by a wisely written literature which he is spreading 
far and near through your country. Again the idea 
behind the "Boy Scouts" of England and the "Play 
Soldiers" in Russia is admirable. Whatever added 
loyalty and power of defence in case of war such a move- 
ment may develop, it is making for manly strength and 
physical endurance in our youth. Professor William 
James has advocated the fundamental thought in an 
article recently written which he calls a " Moral Equiva- 
lent of War." His suggestion is that there should be 
conscription not for service in the Army and Navy, but 
for the construction or production of that which is of 
value to the public. "So far," he says, "war has been 
the only force that can discipline a whole community, 
and until an equivalent discipline is organized, I believe 
that war must have its way. . . . The martial type of 
character can be bred without war." If "there were, 
instead of military conscription, a conscription of the 
whole youthful population to form for a certain number 
of years a part of the army enlisted against Nature," 
1 The Earl of Meath. 



110 IT BEHOOVES MAN TO SUFFER 

the present social inequality would be evened out. "To 
coal and iron mines, to freight trains, to fishing fleets in 
December, to dish washing, clothes washing, and window 
washing; to road building and tunnel making, to found- 
ries and stokeholes, and to the frames of sky-scrapers, 
would our gilded youth be drafted off, according to their 
choice, to get the childishness knocked out of them, and 
to come back into society with healthier sympathies 
and soberer ideas." "I have no serious doubt," he 
continues, "that the ordinary prides and shames of 
social man, once developed to a certain intensity, are 
capable of organizing such a moral equivalent as I have 
sketched, or some other just as effective for preserving 
manliness of type." What is called manly sport, whole- 
some as it is, cannot produce it. The play spirit is God- 
given and wholesome, provided it is protected from the 
blight, in drawing-room or athletic field, of betting and 
gambling. But at best it is health-giving fun. Nothing 
more. Something of a serious cast with a patriotic or 
religious motive behind it will alone suffice to produce 
a high type of robustness. 

But I desire, particularly, to draw your attention to 
the deep suffering of mind and soul which our Lord 
underwent, and which we, too, according to our capac- 
ity must undergo if we are true to our calling, and aim 
to make a worthy contribution to a worthy cause. I 



IT BEHOOVES MAN TO SUFFER 111 

think I am not wrong in maintaining that human life 
knows no worse suffering, excepting only moral degra- 
dation and the ensuing recognition of it, than is caused 
by the failure of those we love, and for whom we labor, 
to accept the things which belong to their peace, and 
by their rejection of us and our service. This is what our 
Lord experienced, and is something with which we our- 
selves must reckon. The pathos of His words as He 
wept over Jerusalem — "If thou hadst known in this 
day, even thou, the things which belong unto peace ! 
But now they are hid from thine eyes" — is unpar- 
alleled, and reveals a depth of inner pain that is in- 
finite. He was left alone, and yet He was not alone 
for He was in the arms of His ideal. His people, 
upon whom He had pressed it, had flung it aside as 
worthless. 

I shall not undertake to say that those for whom a 
leader is responsible will always fail to be won by his 
vision, but it is seldom that a man's deep convictions 
are estimated at their full worth by his own generation. 
They may even be rudely rejected; and never, I suppose, 
do men see the full glory of another's vision. Shortly 
after I was called upon to undertake my present task, at 
the conclusion of a service at which I had endeavored 
to disclose the duty and opportunity which was the 
Church's and mine, a lad came up to me with glistening 



112 IT BEHOOVES MAN TO SUFFER 

eyes and said: "Sir, you have made me see the things 
you see." To achieve such a triumph even once is the 
leader's richest joy. To fail in the effort is the leader's 
keenest grief. I was told years ago by one who now 
stands high in the honor of your nation, that he and 
his wife had been pelted through the streets by the very 
people whom they were striving to benefit, a not un- 
common experience among the benefactors of the race. 
In the middle of the last century another of England's 
great men, an Empire builder, said after an illness: 
"Life, I thought, was gone, and I rejoiced in the hope 
that my death would do for Sarawak what my life 
had not been able to effect." 1 It would be easy to 
multiply illustrations, though impossible fully to 
measure the suffering which they represent. 

There are three principles which belong in common 
to all who entertain serious views of life, and which, 
because they entail discipline and suffering, culminate 
sooner or later in victory. They are: (1) Loyalty to the 
ideal; (2) patience in pursuing it; (3) confidence in one's 
own ultimate judgment. 

1. Our Lord never relinquished a stand which He 
once took. He made clear His position, and there was 
no retreat from it. 

The populace are markedly susceptible to the firm- 

1 Quoted by St. John in his Life of Rajah Brooke. 



IT BEHOOVES MAN TO SUFFER 113 

ness of a man who acts and speaks from conviction, 
though quickly do they detect one whose motive is 
expediency. The persistence of a convinced man is one 
of the most potent instruments which a leader can 
wield. A leader, remember, has a higher function than 
to bring to a focus the desires and plans of his followers. 
He must walk at least a full stride in advance of their 
best aspirations. Having gained a certain degree of 
influence, he must not be too careful of his influence. 
We must neither needlessly do that which will threaten 
its continuance, nor worship it as an idol. He must sit 
as loosely to it as he sits firmly on the throne of his ideal. 
Popularity is not necessarily a means of influence. 
"Surely there is no passion which, when indulged, be- 
comes so strong and vile as the love of popularity." 1 
Love of popularity and desire to retain influence at all 
costs is very apt to result in a policy of weak compromise. 
There was no compromise in our Lord's life. It would 
appear to me that compromise, as we ordinarily under- 
stand it, is almost always weak and usually a failure. 
Two fairminded men or parties should never expect or 
seek compromise, but rather a union of the best and 
strongest elements in both positions where reconcilia- 
tion is possible. But for a leader to compromise with his 
followers is a dangerous course at best. "To make a 

1 Pater. 
8 



114 IT BEHOOVES MAN TO SUFFER 

deal" is not the truest way of insuring progress. Let 
me quote the admirable words of one of your great 
leaders. To abandon principle "for the sake of some 
seeming expediency of the hour is to sacrifice the greater 
good for the less on no more creditable ground than 
that the less is nearer. It is better to wait, and to defer 
the realization of our ideas until we can realize them 
fully, than to defraud the future by truncating them, if 
truncate them we must, in order to secure a partial 
triumph for them in the immediate present. It is better 
to bear the burden of impracticableness, than to stifle 
conviction and to pare away principle until it becomes 
mere hollowness and triviality." 1 

2. The knowledge that when we have once 
pledged ourselves to a certain course retreat is 
dangerous, promotes carefulness. We may not advo- 
cate that which is premature. If our Lord moved with- 
out rest, He also moved without haste. He had 
patience. He knew how to wait. He refused to go up 
to Jerusalem before the time was ripe. It is truly 
said of one of the great figures of the Papacy, Hilde- 
brand, that he "had the greatest mark of political 
genius — he knew how to wait till the full time had 
come." 2 There is nothing harder than to wait, espe- 

1 Lord Morley, On Compromise, p. 265. 
3 Creighton's, History of the Papacy, in loo. 



IT BEHOOVES MAN TO SUFFER 115 

cially when it is possible to achieve seeming success 
by action. Waiting means patience, and patience is 
but a Latin word for suffering. 

3. Our ultimate judgment is final against every 
argument or seduction that may be brought to bear 
upon it. The pain and loneliness of such a position are 
a frequent part of a leader's life. But to yield to 
another's judgment in a matter in which we have final 
responsibility, when our own best judgment pronounces 
a contrary verdict, is fatal to ourselves and our cause. 
An eminent leader, one whom I revere above all living 
statesmen, has bravely recorded, in the history of his 
administrative work, an error of this sort, one of the 
few errors in a singularly chaste career. With a strong 
array of public opinion against him he mistrusted his 
own judgment. "I did not yield," he says, "because 
I hesitated to stand up against the storm of public 
opinion; I gave a reluctant assent, in reality against 
my own judgment and inclination, because I thought 
that as everybody differed from me I must be wrong. 
... In yielding, I made a mistake which I shall never 
cease to regret." 1 Self-respect reaches its summit in a 
proper regard for our own matured judgment when it 
has been once formed. Moments come in every man's 
life when he must firmly lay aside the counsels of his 
x Cromer's Modern Egypt, vol. i, pp. 437, 438. 



116 IT BEHOOVES MAN TO SUFFER 

dearest and best in order that he may apply himself to 
his Father's business. 

If I have seemed to set an impossible ideal for men 
who are responsible for the course others take, I would 
say that modern leaders, in their fear of being called 
tyrannical, have become too much the passive tool of 
the people, and the world of to-day needs that combina- 
tion of firmness and considerateness, insight and com- 
mon-sense, idealism and practicality, which is found 
only in the inmost citadel of suffering, and can be held 
only by those who are ready to risk all things. 

Time remains only to indicate other features of our 
Lord's inner suffering, such, for instance, as His re- 
jection by men. We feel aggrieved if a friend speaks 
slightingly of us; He was stung to the quick of His loyal 
nature by the deliberate treachery of one of His most 
intimate comrades: " If an open enemy had done me this 
dishonor I could have borne it. But it was thou, my 
companion, my guide, mine own familiar friend." He 
was robbed of His reputation. The community, that is 
to say, withdrew from Him its respect, a violence second 
only to the abdication of self-respect. It is the regard 
of society which makes the individual complete. When 
this is withdrawn or a man's reputation is clouded, it 
means that society refuses to recognize, with or without 
cause, his value as a social being. It is true that a man 



IT BEHOOVES MAN TO SUFFER 117 

of character can afford to be robbed of his reputation, but 
he cannot be absolved from the pain of the experience. 

The climax of the Christ's suffering was reached when 
He uttered the cry from the cross : " My God, My God, 
why hast Thou forsaken Me?" There is much that is 
inexplicable in this dark moment, but is it not the 
parallel in His high sphere of that which happened to 
John the Baptist when he called from his dungeon: 
"Art Thou He that cometh or look we for another?" 
Did it not seem to Him, as it did to His forerunner, that 
His faithfully pursued ideal, His patience, His loyalty 
to the inner voice had effected nothing, that His voca- 
tion had not been blessed by God? Under the cloud of 
failure, the very failure, perhaps, which is a handbreadth 
from success, we, too, may find the question rising: Is 
my life one vast mistake; were my sacrifices judicious; is 
God with me? If we do, we shall be able to understand 
as never before the true meaning of suffering, and, if we 
conquer in it, the true meaning of faith. 

There is but one more thought upon which to dwell at 
this time. In the Transfiguration our Lord discerned 
clearly and accepted the principle of gain through loss, 
victory through defeat, life through death, glory 
through suffering. But this was but a beginning; there 
was more for Him to do. He had to apply the principle 
to His own case, which He did in Gethsemane : 



118 IT BEHOOVES MAN TO SUFFER 

Into the woods my Master went 

Clean forspent, forspent. 

Into the woods my Master came, 

Forspent with love and shame. 

But the olives they were not blind to Him, 

And the little gray leaves were kind to Him; 

The thorn-tree had a mind to Him 

When into the woods He came. 

Out of the woods my Master went. 

And He was well content. 

Out of the woods my Master came 

Content with death and shame. 

When death and shame would woo Him last 

From under the trees they drew Him last; 

'Twas on a tree they slew Him — last. 

When out of the woods He came. 

I see going from this country and my own to the hard 
places in Church and State, to remote consular posts, to 
the Civil Service, to high office in India and Egypt, to 
lonely mission stations on island and continent — I see 
going thither the flower of our nations, yours and mine. 
They go with the natural eagerness and courage of 
youth, with the confidence of experience; aye, and, I 
trust, with the belief that God is with them. For they 
are going to glory, though it is glory by the route of 
suffering. They are quietly making as fine an offering 
of self as the martyrs of science who die from the cruel 
gaze of the X-ray, or from the pitiless plunge of an 
aeroplane. Many of them know clearly beforehand 



IT BEHOOVES MAN TO SUFFER 119 

what they must expect. At least, they have it as a 
theory. Let them take their several disciplines and 
accept them for themselves, that some day each may be : 

The catholic man, who hath mightily won 

God out of knowledge and good out of infinite pain, 

And sight out of blindness and purity out of a stain. 

Have I seemed, in what I have said, to make life a 
mere shiver of pain? God forbid. It is glory, ultimate 
success, that is the goal. The world is a sphere of suffer- 
ing and, until it is remade from base to summit, no one 
can deny that it will continue to be what it is. But the 
aim of fine manhood should be not to make life easy 
but to make it so strong that it can stand the utmost 
strain. Again, I say the end is not suffering but victory, 
though of a sort that can be achieved only through 
suffering. Nothing less is worthy of men who are sons 
of God. It behooves us to suffer that we may enter into 
our glory. The highest joy here and now is three parts 
pain. 

True calm doth quiver like the calmest star; 
It is the white where all the colors are; 
And for its very vestibule doth own 
The tree of Jesus and the pyre of Joan. 

There are two kinds of joy : the joy of youth, which is 
as the joy of the harp, when the fingers of the master 
musician sweep its responsive strings till they vibrate 



120 IT BEHOOVES MAN TO SUFFER 

with eager music, quivering to the skies; and the joy of 
mature age, of purposeful manhood, which is as the 
joy of a jewel that flashes out its life set free by the hard 
blows of the hammer and the burning discipline of the 
polishing wheel. It is the last joy that is the greatest, 
for our destiny is glory, our route is suffering. 



GOING UP TO JERUSALEM 1 

Then Jesus took unto Him the twelve, and said unto them, Behold, we go 
up to Jerusalem, and all things that are written by the prophets concern- 
ing the Son of Man shall be accomplished. For He shall be delivered unto 
the Gentiles, and shall be mocked, and spitefully entreated, and spitted 
upon; and they shall scourge Him, and put Him to death; and the third 
day He shall rise again. Luke xviii, 31 f. 

THIS was not the first time that Jesus Christ had ^ 
said, "Behold, we go up to Jerusalem." In his 
boyhood, when he turned His face toward the holy city 
with gladness and joy, He said to His parents, " Behold, 
at last we go up to Jerusalem. My dream is about to be 
realized. The city of God which has been my ideal is at 
last to dawn before my eyes." On that first occasion 
when Jesus Christ went up to Jerusalem, He went in 
order that He might get inspiration. He had been 
taught from his earliest youth of the greatness of the 
holy city. It stood to Him as the symbol of a mighty 
nation, and in its heart was the temple where God dwelt. 
Boyish eyes, the eyes of children, are very pure, and 

1 Preached in Trinity Cathedral, Shanghai, on February 23, 1909. 

121 



122 GOING UP TO JERUSALEM 

they see things that are hidden from the eyes of all who 
have failed to protect their innocency. The eyes of 
children see things that very few eyes but those of 
children are capable of seeing. The child-like and the 
child have such penetration, such insight, that they can 
go beneath the surface of life and perceive the eternal 
foundation upon which all life, all manifestations of 
life are built; and so was it with Jesus Christ, the little 
lad. As He journeyed toward Jerusalem with His 
father and His mother, and with all the company that 
belonged to that group, He went with eager heart and 
with tripping feet. He was preparing for life, and every 
one who is preparing for life reaches out with both 
hands for inspiration. Life cannot be lived unless it is 
inspired, and life cannot be inspired by the effort of the 
individual alone. He has got to reach out beyond him- 
self, above himself, and get that which he is capable of 
taking into his soul, but which won't come into his soul 
unless he aspires to it. 

Then, having done this, he becomes inspired. If you 
would be inspired then, aspire. So it was with the lad. 
He went to Jerusalem to be inspired. He saw the holy 
city as the symbol of an imperishable nation. He knew 
the story of the past. He was full of patriotism, and 
his conception of the nation was that there was no 
people in the world comparable with it. It stood alone. 



GOING UP TO JERUSALEM 123 

It was the hope of the rest of the world: and as for its 
Church, it too was the spiritual hope of mankind. Was 
he not versed in the prophets and did not the best of 
the prophets say that Israel was not a close corporation, 
that Israel was the great spiritual trustee for all man- 
kind; and he expected to see in the temple and the 
priesthood evidences of mighty moral and spiritual 
power. How eagerly then, did the boy turn toward 
Jerusalem ! 

You say "Of course, children do not understand 
human life." Do not understand human life? No one 
understands human life like children. Children see 
human life as it ought to be and is capable of being. 
They look into the faces of father and mother, and in 
them they see symbols of God Himself. Say a word to a 
child against his father or mother and see the fire 
kindle within and flash from his eyes. Children do not 
understand it! Only the children and the child-like 
can enter into the great depths of life, which are called 
in the phraseology of Jesus Christ the Kingdom of 
Heaven. You can't even see the Kingdom of Heaven 
unless you look at it through a child's eyes. Jesus Christ 
the boy saw human life as it ought to be and as it was 
in Him, and as through Himself he purposed to make it 
for the rest of mankind. That was the first journey to 
Jerusalem. 



124 GOING UP TO JERUSALEM 

And what a contrast with His last one, which is 
recorded by the same hand that tells the story of the 
first. His first journey to Jerusalem was in order that 
He might receive something. His last journey to Jeru- 
salem was in order that He might give something. His 
first journey to Jerusalem was an inspiration: His last 
journey was a task. His first journey was a joy; his last 
journey was an agony. His first journey was free, free 
with the carelessness of the lad who is doing what he 
wants to do; and His last journey was free with the 
mighty liberty of the true Son of God who is capable of 
doing and doing bravely and cheerfully that which he 
does not want to do but which he knows he must do. 
Now as He journeys toward Jerusalem, He sees human l/ 
life in all its bareness, with all its sores, in all its misery. 
As a lad He had not turned the pages, He had not read : 
the whole volume; he had not seen how the promise of 
the blossom turned out. But twenty years have passed 
since then, and Jesus Christ lived every year of His life. 
He was not driftwood; He did not float with the current; 
He was not on the surface of things. He was deep down 
beneath, studying, seeing how things were in order that 
he might mend that which was amiss and encourage and 
develop that which was true. And as He journeys this 
last time up to Jerusalem, He knows every bit of life not 
because He is God merely — Jesus Christ knew life 



GOING UP TO JERUSALEM 125 

because He lived it and lived it to the full. He knew it 
from beneath the surface. He knew it not because He 
studied from the outside, but because He experienced 
it from within. Jesus Christ revealed man's destiny by 
achieving it; and the only way to know life is to live it; 
and the only way to know Christianity is to be a Chris- 
tian; and to be a Christian is to follow in the foot-steps 
of Jesus Christ. 

He knew human life, seared, scarred, full of sores, and 
yet He continued to believe in it. Was it fatuous of Him 
to continue to believe in human life in spite of His expe- 
rience, in spite of what his prophetic eye saw was still 
in store for Him? Is it fatuous for people whom we know 
in our own midst, to go on trusting, though from time to 
time they are disappointed? It is the tendency of youth 
to believe and to trust broadly. It is the tendency of 
maturer years to become cynical and to distrust; but if 
we are so foolish and so far astray as to become cynical, 
let us remember that we are not merely indulging a 
personal tendency which can affect none but ourselves — 
we are disturbing the pure soul of youth. Fathers and 
mothers, remember that what your temper is toward 
mankind will be discerned by your little ones. They 
cannot fail to see, and it will be impossible for you to 
hide from their eyes just what your attitude is. It seems 
to me that the function of the mature, the duty of us 



126 GOING UP TO JERUSALEM 

who are seniors, is to stand as great mountains by youth 
to protect them against storms that they will meet soon 
enough; and if we have to present to them or, I should 
say, when we have to present to them, the seared side of 
life, let us always strike the note of hope and say that 
virtue lost is not lost forever. Virtue lost may be re- 
gained, — aye, must be regained — and when men do fail 
us, when we have trusted and there has not been a re- 
sponse, our attitude towards them is not to cast them 
off, but to trust and trust again. Have faith in your 
fellows and in the end your fellows will respond to your 
trust. 

Jesus Christ goes up to Jerusalem to give and not to \J 
receive this time. His purpose is to serve and His pre- 
cept has been that there is no service without suffering, 



and He is ready for the suffering. Not only is He going 

up at a great risk to Himself, but He is going up with a 

certainty that evil will befall Him. He could have saved / 

Y 
Himself quite easily, but you know it is a law of life 

that when a man saves himself, it is impossible for him 

to save others. It was one of the taunts of the cross — 

"Thou hast saved others. Save Thyself and come down 

from the cross," but there was no response to them. The 

figure hanging on the cross was absorbed and occupied 

in saving others. He had not time to give thought to 

Himself. It is impossible, I repeat, for a man or for a 



GOING UP TO JERUSALEM 127 

nation — it is impossible to save self and to serve others. 
The two things are mutually contradictory. Jesus , 
Christ, had He chosen, could have gone away and 
hidden Himself in some obscure place until the fickle 
Jews had forgotten even who He was. He could have 
abandoned His own country. He could have changed 
His front toward great moral questions; but instead, He v 
set His face toward Jerusalem. There are two ways in 
which we can speak of the close of the life of Jesus Christ : 
We can say that men put Him to death, or that He laid 
down His life. "He laid down His life" is the phrase 
that most truly expresses what happened, because He 
knew beforehand and counted the full cost of going to 
Jerusalem. He embraced that which was going to 
happen before it happened. He foresaw that He was 
going to be betrayed by an intimate friend. Have you jy 
had the experience at some time or another of one who 
was very dear to you not playing quite true? If you 
have, you know the keenness of the anguish of the^ 
experience. Christ knew He was going to be betrayed 
into the hands of evil men by one who had stood so 
close to Him as to have had the privilege of looking 
into his very heart. He further knew, because He talked 
to His companions about it, that He must suffer all kinds 
of indignity — that He must undergo that worst kind of 
contempt and scorn — that He must be spat upon. 



128 GOING UP TO JERUSALEM 

Then He had to lose His reputation too. We count 
our reputation of high value and the law of the land 
takes care that a man's reputation may not be tampered 
with by those who dislike or hate him. It is one of the 
chief functions of the law to defend a man's character. 
A man has a right to his character, and society must 
see to it that he is defended in his rights. The least 
suspicion that rises against us and tends to tarnish our 
fair name, we resent, because we men are self-respect- 
ing beings. Self-respect in its highest form is born of 
two things : it is born of the knowledge that God respects 
us, because He sees what is inside our souls and charac- 
ters; He respects us because, in spite of our failures, we 
have high ambitions. We aim to be all that man is 
capable of becoming, and so far as we have done wrong, 
we have undone it in intention, at any rate, and asked 
God to undo it as completely as divine power can undo 
the past. We respect ourselves then because we know 
our Maker respects us. Secondly we have self-respect 
because we know our fellows respect us, and we have 
that within us which justifies the measure of respect 
they bestow upon us; so that when reputation is 
threatened every fibre of a true man's being resents the 
imputation or attack. And Jesus Christ knew that He 
was going up to Jerusalem to lose His reputation; not 
merely to be robbed of a little bit of it; not merely 



GOING UP TO JERUSALEM 129 

to undergo some scraps of petty criticism; but to be 
ranked amongst the lowest criminals, to be held up 
to the disdain of his own nation, and to suffer on 
what corresponded in that day to the gallows. That 
was what He had in His mind when He went up to 
Jerusalem. 

And what was His manner as He set out on His 
journey? Of course, it was not the manner of the boy. 
When we are children we think and see and act as 
children, but when we are men we put away childish 
things. And yet I love to think of it, that all that was 
beautiful and strong in the boy Jesus Christ still re- 
mained in the man Jesus Christ; and every Christmas- 
time as the commemoration of the birth of the Saviour 
comes before us, I love to think of the fact that He who 
to-day is dwelling in the midst of the Godhead, the 
triumphant Saviour, is also the little baby and the little 
boy. He never lost any of the beautiful things that 
belong to babyhood and to boyhood. His progress was 
cumulative progress. Everything that He possessed at 
any one moment in His life, He possessed always. It has 
not been so with us, but it was with Him. 

And so in one sense He went up to Jerusalem with . 
some of the same spirit as when a boy. It was not now 
the joy of carelessness, but it was the joy of purpose, and » 
of the two I am inclined to think that the joy of pur- 



130 GOING UP TO JERUSALEM 

pose is bigger than the joy of freedom from all care. A 
man with a purpose is a man who has loaded himself 
with care, with responsibility, and he is putting his 
whole being into the effort to fulfil his responsibility and 
to carry out his purpose. There is joy in it, let me tell 
you; there is joy in it that nothing on earth, or in 
Heaven or in hell can rob a man of. Give a man a pur- 
pose bigger than himself and then you have made the 
man. A purpose is not something which we take into 
our arms, which we can analyze, which we can use at 
will. A purpose, if it is a worthy one, is something that 
holds us in its arms, and hurries us on with the force of 
the tempest and with the directness of the lightning; and 
Jesus Christ went up to Jerusalem with a purpose, that 
was not a selfish purpose either. He said to His dis- 
ciples, "Let us go to Jerusalem. " He knew they could 
not bear what He had to bear. But He was so generous 
that He invited them to go just as far as they were 
capable of going into His purpose. He gathered together 
three of His disciples that they might go with Him into 
the shadow of Gethsemane, and receive something of 
its great benefit, because great pain has something of 
benediction in it. 

The purpose of Christ was not to introduce men to 
death but to life by way of death, himself leading the 
way. "Unless a corn of wheat fall into the ground and 



GOING UP TO JERUSALEM 131 

die it abideth alone, but if it die it bringeth forth much 
fruit." — Death is not the end of Christian effort but life. 

No Soul thai breathes this human breath 
Has ever truly longed for death. 
'Tis life whereof our nerves are scant: 
*Tis life not death for which I pant 
More life and fuller that we want. 

And Jesus Christ went up to Jerusalem to live. He fore- 
told that after all indignities had been endured and 
death suffered, He would rise again. He was going to 
live by means of the cross. The cross was the agency to 
introduce Him into eternal life, and when on Easter 
morn He did rise from the dead and showed that He 
was its final conqueror, He was no more a conqueror 
than when He hung on the cross and defied death. The 
moment a man sacrifices life he begins to live the life of 
the resurrection. 

Such an one then was Jesus Christ, Who went up to 
Jerusalem accompanied by His disciples. They were 
amazed as they saw Him — the new flash in His eye, the 
new dignity in His bearing — just as you have been 
amazed in seeing a widow, whom you expected to be 
bowed down by her bereavement; but to your astonish- 
ment she is not bowed down and broken. God has bent 
her straight, and she faces you with unbounded power. 
That is what happens to men and women who face 



132 GOING UP TO JERUSALEM 

suffering and use it as an instrument designed to make, 
not to break them. Jesus Christ tells us what we should 
do. As He was so must we be. 

One who never turned his back, but marched breast forward; 

Never doubted clouds would break; 
Never dreamed though right were worsted wrong would triumph; 
Held we fall to rise, are baffled to fight better, sleep to wake. 

Is that optimism? It is the right kind of optimism 
that faces the worst but believes in the best. And so 
Jesus Christ went up to Jerusalem. 

Is all this for our admiration? If so, God has won His 
point. We admire it. Even my recountal, imperfect as 
it is, has thrilled you this morning. It is impossible for 
a preacher to speak of such things without knowing 
that even if his presentation be imperfect, their force is 
so great that they themselves will accomplish what his 
words cannot do. You can never think of the going up 
to Jerusalem of Jesus Christ without your best man- 
hood and womanhood responding to it, just as the 
strings of the harp respond to the fingers of the musi- 
cian. We admire. Is that all? No; your heart tells you 
you do more. You aspire. You want to be what Jesus 
was. You want to go to Jerusalem, just as He went up; 
and it is your duty to go to Jerusalem. The parallel in 
your life and mine — the parallel of Jerusalem — is our 
ideal, whatever it may be. 



GOING UP TO JERUSALEM 133 

We go back to our childhood and we recall the days 
when the world was very fair, when the storm clouds 
only seemed to come in order that they might make 
beautiful the bright shining of the sun; and all the 
clouds that we did see were decked with rich color by 
the touch of the joy in which we lived. We began life, 
thinking it was all beautiful and that God was extremely 
good, especially to those of us who had large privileges 
in childhood and later life. God brings out first of all the 
beautiful side of the world. Science has by its minute 
analysis shown us there is another side of life, but the 
first thing God teaches us is that human life is beautiful. 

I slept and dreamed that life was beauty, 

I woke and found that life was duty. 
Was that dream then a shadow lief 

Toil on, sad heart courageously, 
And thou shalt find thy dream to be 
A truth, and noonday light to thee. 

We began by thinking life was beauty, and then we 
began to run up against all those manifold disappoint- 
ments of which it is so full. Happy are those of us who 
have survived the experience without being injured 
spiritually. Happy are we if, in spite of all, we have the 
true optimism which sees the romance in life. There are 
only two periods in life when we can see the romantic or 
beautiful side, — before it begins, when it is all vision 



134 GOING UP TO JERUSALEM 

and prospect; and after it is done, — when in the illumina- 
tion of restrospection we look back and review the past. 
Ask any soldier who has been in the thick of the battle, 
if he found any romance in it when the steel was flashing 
and the guns thundering. He will tell you no, but as you 
sit by the fireside and hear tales of the battles fought 
and won, you are thrilled by the romance of it all. And 
with Jesus Christ we thrill with the romance of it all, 
but during the time of the struggle Jesus Christ found 
life just as dull gray and unpleasant as you and I find it 
at this present moment, as we battle with the trials and 
difficulties with which we are confronted. But when the 
battle is over, if we have battled in the spirit of Jesus 
Christ, we find after all that life has been beautiful and 
romantic. The colors are different, the perspective is 
not the same, but the beauty is of a higher order. 

The ideal is very clear before the child's eyes. We 
saw in our own nation and Church, all the beauties that 
inhere in national and spiritual and ecclesiastical life. 
We treasured those things and defended them against 
the attacks of those who, perhaps, were connected with 
other nations, or who lived in other religious commun- 
ions. Ours was best; ours was the most beautiful. And 
all the time, as we treasured this belief, we were receiv- 
ing inspiration from our nation and from our Church. 
Our Jerusalem was giving to us just what Christ's 



GOING UP TO JERUSALEM 135 

Jerusalem gave to Him when he was a boy of Nazareth. 
That day has passed. We see the dreary actual. Our 
knowledge is of things as they are. How are we behav- 
ing toward our Jerusalem? Are we going up to it or 
have we turned our back upon it? Is our ideal still clear 
before us or beneath all the imperfections and sorrows, 
having seen the underside of life, have we become dis- 
gusted? Are we among the live fish that are deep down 
beneath the surface with their heads upstream, or are we 
among the dead fish that with the refuse of the stream 
are floating upon the surface to be engulfed in the great 
sea? What is our position? What are we doing with 
our Jerusalem? — our Jerusalem in the sense of the 
nation? our Jerusalem in the sense of our municipality 
and its civic life? Are we using it as the vintner uses the 
cluster of grapes in order that we may squeeze into our 
cup of pleasure all the sweet juice that it is capable of 
giving? Is that what we are doing with our nation, 
with our civic life? Or are we sitting in the seats of the 
scornful, saying, "I once thought my nation was a 
worthy nation. I once thought my city a beautiful city, 
but I have been disillusionized, " with curled lip express- 
ing disdain towards civilization and towards the city as 
we know it, never lifting a finger to make it better. Is 
that our attitude towards our Jerusalem? I trust not. 
The true way is this, — and you will see it is only common 



136 GOING UP TO JERUSALEM 

justice, inasmuch as our Jerusalem gave us all the in- 
spiration and manhood in our life, — that when we find 
Jerusalem, the inspirer of our youth, poor and naked and 
needy, it is our duty to go to her and minister to her 
in her need, to serve her loyally and affectionately. We 
have got to learn the majestic lesson of self-forgetfulness. 

Just think; our civilization, English or American, or 
whatever it may be, made us what we are; gave us our 
manhood, equipped us intellectually; endowed us with 
the franchise; placed in our hands great moral precepts; 
filled us with that sense of fellowship in the nation 
which in itself is a privilege and a joy. Then how in- 
cumbent it is upon us that we should make some return 
to the nation! It seems to me the least thing we can 
give the nation is our life; that the least thing we can 
risk for the civic good is our reputation; and I maintain 
that history to-day is going to be repeated; that just as 
in the old days reformers almost always were mud- 
bespattered, and for a season at least lost their reputa- 
tion; so will it be in our day for men who are living their 
lives in behalf of their community, without thought of 
gain or selfish benefit. 

It is my happy privilege this morning to speak to 
many young men and young women. Young men, 
remember that you have got your strength for one 
purpose, that it should be used where it will count for 



GOING UP TO JERUSALEM 137 

most. And young women, remember that God made 
you to be queens and not butterflies. God made you to 
dominate life at its core, and womanhood has but little 
conception (we men know it) of its power to make man- 
hood noble. Believe that you have it, and then go out 
and fulfil your labor. 

National and civic life is pleading for men to-day who 
will not save themselves, who will risk their reputation ; 
and I venture to say that no man is safe unless he swings 
his life between a risk and an opportunity. You can- 
not reach the height of opportunity without cradling 
yourself in a risk. Stranger as I am, in one sense, in 
a city which from the moment of my arrival made me 
feel that I was not to count myself a stranger; stranger 
that I am in your city, I see its possibilities. It is the 
mixing bowl of the nations. It has an opportunity for 
international amity and action which is afforded very 
few cities in the world, if all its citizens labor together 
for the purposes of God. Every city should be a city 
of integrity, of purity, and of mutual service. What 
are you doing to make it so? Are you risking your life 
and your reputation? The opportunity is before you. 
Swing your life between the risk and the opportunity 
and you will be secure. Do not be afraid of losing your 
reputation. If you have a character you can afford to 
lose your reputation. 



138 GOING UP TO JERUSALEM 

As I speak I recall that poem of Browning's — you 
remember it — Home Thoughts. I quote the pertinent 
line which can be translated to fit the individual con- 
ditions and the national character of each one present. 

"Here and here did England help me; how can I help 
England ?—Say" 

And then as to church life. Here is another aspect 
of your Jerusalem. What is your attitude toward the 
Church that you loved and which inspired you as a 
boy? You were a chorister, perhaps, and sang God's 
praises in one of the beautiful temples of the old home- 
land. You loved and revered your Church, you believed 
in Christ with simple trust. Since then you have seen 
another side of the Church; you have seen the schisms 
that break its unity; the defects in its organization; the 
failures and sins of its clergy and leaders. But the 
Church inspired you. Your highest motives and your 
best self were the creation of the Church. The Church 
served you as a boy and tempered your character. How 
are you serving the Church as a man? By sitting out- 
side of it and criticizing it? Criticize the clergy by all 
means, but remember we clergy are not the Church. 
You laity form the bulk of the Church. Criticize us by 
all means, for we clergy need the help of honest criticism , 
but why not criticize from within and not from without. 
Jesus Christ was the greatest critic the Church ever 



GOING UP TO JERUSALEM 139 

saw, but He was in the Church all the time. He strove 
to help the Church as part of the Church, and what the 
Church needs to-day are honest men who are sitting 
outside the Church and criticizing it. We need those 
men, I say, inside the Church to criticize constructively. 
It is true and I know it, that the simple faith of the old 
days is gone. It is true that intellectual critics have 
taken away some of the more romantic aspects of Jesus 
Christ. It is true that intellectual logic seems at times 
almost to remove Christ from our midst altogether. 

Loud mockers in the roaring street 

Say Christ is crucified again; 

Twice pierced His gospel-bearing feet. 

Twice broken His great heart in vain. 

I hear, and to myself I smile, 

For Christ talks with me all the while. 

It is true that simple faith is gone, but the Christ of 
experience is still among us and still in His Church. So 
I say, come into the Church, those who are standing 
outside, and find Him. Lend both your hands and the 
whole of your heart to serve the Church that in its 
early days inspired you. 

Now all that I have been urging means moral courage, 
the kind of courage that characterized Jesus Christ as 
He went up to Jerusalem; and remember that Christ's 
moral courage combined with it physical courage. He 



140 GOING UP TO JERUSALEM 

was not afraid of the loss of reputation or life. There is 
the example before us. There are men who have re- 
sponded to that example, men who have lived in your 
midst too. This last week one has been laid to rest who 
faced the problems of a great city and who ministered 
most faithfully and loyally to the sailors and to the 
poor. He is now with his Lord. He has entered the 
heavenly Jerusalem. 

But years ago there was one in your midst who had 
marvellous moral courage and marvellous physical 
courage. I cannot mention in this presence the name of 
"Chinese" Gordon without stirring your emotions, — 
Gordon, the man who in his last days was sent up to a 
painful Jerusalem indeed. He saw in the Soudan and 
Egypt possibilities of service which claimed him. He 
wished to make his contribution to that progress of 
civilization that would sweep away the last remnant of 
slavery. So he went to Khartoum. You recall his last 
days. How splendid they were ! You recall how, when 
the people of the city began to lose all heart he sent this 
message: "Go, tell all the people of Khartoum that 
Gordon fears nothing. God made him without fear." 
And then a few days later as he stood at the door of his 
office and saw the howling mob coming, his splendid 
courage made its last exhibition before the eyes of man- 
kind. He was a perfect Sir Galahad as he stood there in 



GOING UP TO JERUSALEM 141 

his white uniform; his careworn face, and his hair sil- 
vered with the anxiety and responsibility that a negli- 
gent Government had allowed him to carry unaided. We 
know the faults of Gordon. The hand that most clearly 
portrays the character, the true character of Gordon, 
also indicates his defects. Lord Cromer tells us how 
Gordon stood there waiting for the end, his left hand on 
the hilt of his sword, his revolver in his right hand but 
without any intention of striking a blow or firing a shot. 
They came to him, the betrayers and the enemy, to 
slay him, and as he received the first spear in a breast 
that contained a heart that was always beating with 
love for humanity, he waved his right hand in disdain 
and turned his back to receive his death wound. As the 
sun rose over the Egyptian desert a few moments later 
the star of a great hero became fixed in the firmament 
which holds in its safekeeping all God's heroes, who are 
heroes forever. 

There is your example. You people of Shanghai have 
the responsibility of sharing in a hero; and remember 
that heroes would despise us if we only admired them 
and failed to imitate them. "Noblesse oblige" — Let us 
go up to Jerusalem! 



XI 
A LITTLE CHILD SHALL LEAD THEM" 1 

Isaiah xi, 6. 

S the hills stand about Jerusalem so standeth the 
Lord round about His people." On this tower- 
ing eminence, which has kept its sentinel watch over our 
Capital City since its infancy, the walls of a temple of 
God, national in aim, national in name, are about to rise. 

It will typify that in which we all believe — that the 
God of Nations is with us and in us. As He has watched 
over us in the past, so will He guide and shape our des- 
tiny in days to come. Already has He set His Name on 
this place; and where God sets His Name there He is in 
special sense to be found. This is none other but the 
House of God, and this is the Gate of Heaven. 

There will be no mistaking the meaning of this 
House. Its one use will be worship. It will be an invita- 
tion in stone to all men to come to God, and in Him 
find illumination and strength and contentment. It 

1 Preached on All Saints' Day, 1910, at the Laying of the Corner- 
stone of the National Cathedral, Washington. 

142 



"A CHILD SHALL LEAD THEM" 143 

will be a reminder to our legislators and statesmen that 
all human law must rest on the Divine. 

The conception of a National Cathedral was the 
vision of a man whose sympathies were as broad as 
mankind, whose patriotism was as intelligent as it was 
deep, and whose insight was that of the pure in heart. 
A little more than three years ago we stood about him 
as he rejoiced over a small beginning as though it had 
been the consummation of his vision. As he laid the 
foundation stone the present melted into the future 
and he saw with clear eye that which is yet to be. Such 
men rob the present and the actual of their poverty by 
clothing that which is with that which is to be. We 
need the seer and the prophet in every age. Without 
their vision and promise, there can be no progress. 

There have been more intellectual men than Henry 
Yates Satterlee; there have been abler men; there have 
been greater administrators; but never has there been a 
purer hearted man, never one more childlike. 

He saw far. The interests of the world were his inter- 
ests. Is it not an encouragement to find an increasing 
number of men who can truthfully say: "I am man; 
naught that touches humanity is alien to me"? There 
was no new responsibility of State or Church into which 
he did not enter with that eagerness which is charac- 
teristic of youth but not always found in men of maturer 



144 "A LITTLE CHILD 

years. But his venturesomeness was not rashness. He 
weighed risks and opportunities with steady hand. 
Conservative as he was, he did not believe that to 
conserve was to embalm; progressive as he was, he 
distinguished between the fickleness of a novelty-seeker 
and the stable advance of a truth-seeker. 

He saw deep. There was in his eyes at times some of 
the unfathomable depth of the child's eyes. He lived in 
his ideals. They, with God at their centre, were the 
real things of his life. The opposition, the indifference, 
the disapproval of men could not obscure them for him. 
Like all big souls he lived in advance of his contem- 
poraries; and like all big souls, when they lagged behind 
he refused to be discouraged or embittered. He knew 
the truth and the truth made him splendidly free. 

It is fitting that a child's hand should lay the corner- 
stone of the Bethlehem Chapel of the Holy Nativity, 
for had the hand of the first Bishop of Washington held 
the trowel and tried the stone it would have been the 
hand of a child. It is doubly fitting that the boy who 
acts in his absence should be his own flesh and blood, as 
well as his own namesake. 

It will always be so that the child spirit will lead 
men. Its power to see is the only thing that can save 
men from the tyranny of prosperity and the prison of 
the things that are temporal. To-day it will not be 



SHALL LEAD THEM" 145 

amiss to consider as though it were complete this castle 
in the air under which we are slowly placing foundations, 
and discern what it stands for locally and in its broader 
relations. It is necessary so to do in order that the 
National Cathedral, both in spirit and in fact, should 
come into being. The idea precedes the embodiment. 
Indeed had the people of our communion caught the 
vision of the first Bishop of Washington it would have 
before this been realized. It is to-day at its beginning 
rather than its consummation, not from lack of means 
on the part of the Church but from lack of vision. 

The National Cathedral is to be the organ of a 
Church which claims national character. A national 
Church must aim to spiritualize and unify all the in- 
terests of the nation. Nothing is beyond her reach, 
nothing so unimportant as not to excite her sympathy. 
Government, society, education, religion are all her 
concern. 

The separation between Church and State is not a 
separation of antagonism but of friendliness. Both are 
organs with distinct functions in the same body cor- 
porate. Just as when administration and commerce are 
controlled by the same hand mischief ensues, so where 
Church and State are formally related and intertwined, 
each is hampered in the operation of its power. Analy- 
sis distinguishes functions and prepares the way for a 



146 "A LITTLE CHILD 

higher degree of organic life. Neither Church nor State 
can stand alone without the support of the other. A 
free Church in a free State does not mean that each 
holds aloof from the other, but that there should be 
mutual respect and impartial co-operation. There can 
be a clash of interests only where there is usurpation 
of powers not within the province of the Church or 
State, as the case may be. 

Religion always has been the soul of nationalism. 
Those churches have best fulfilled their duty in this 
respect when they have adapted their polity to fit the 
framework of government. This was conspicuous of the 
case in the days of Imperial Rome, and afterwards, 
when modern nations were born, in the various coun- 
tries of Europe. The communion which we represent 
indicates her sense of responsibility to the State by her 
system of government, which is constructed on the lines 
of the nation, and for this reason she feels that, without 
arrogance or without desire to depreciate the national 
character of other communions, she can claim marked 
national character. 

One of the chief tasks of any church which recognizes 
obligation to the nation is to aid in the unification of the 
diverse elements of our nation. There are four great 
unifying forces in the world — race, religion, government, 
and language. The two former are the greatest. Blood 



SHALL LEAD THEM" 147 

is thicker than water, but religion is thicker than 
blood. 

Racial unity is for the present strong in our Republic. 
But listen to the tramp of men and women coming from 
afar, men and women of alien blood and thought. We 
call them immigrants and assign them a lowly place, 
bidding them make their way. They come with sturdy 
arms, with willing hands, with ability to endure hard- 
ship and to meet difficulty. They are laboring busily 
and creating manhood, while too many of the old Anglo- 
Saxon and Dutch stock are withering under the blight 
of misused prosperity and selfish success. 

Two duties ring out to the Church their call to arms. 
1. Unless religion is given its proper place by the prosper- 
ous and the aristocracy of wealth and wealth-seekers, 
America of to-day will decay and a new America of 
imported blood will supplant it. Luxury always goes 
down before industry. I do not say that prosperity in 
itself is bad, but I do say without fear of contradiction 
that prosperity without real religion is self-destructive. 
The gospel of a National Church to-day must be a 
gospel of inspiring austerity and royal service. Culture 
brings peculiar temptations and these temptations are 
mowing down their thousands under our eyes. 

2. Then in the second place, any Church which is to 
have a part in the national life of to-morrow must busy 



148 "A LITTLE CHILD 

herself on those folk of foreign blood who are to have a 
large share in the nation of to-morrow. Poles, Swedes, 
Slavs, Italians, coming as they do from lands of lesser 
liberties to a land where freedom borders on license, 
easily drift from their religious moorings, and we would 
show no disrespect to other Christian communions, but 
would rather give them the aid they need, if we threw 
our best energies and thought into the problem of how 
they may be kept pious and made righteous. And never 
may we forget what is at once the gravest in fact and 
richest in possibilities of our problems, the problem of 
the colored race. Forever will it be the problem of the 
nation, and not the problem of the South. When this 
fact is properly accepted, its solution will be in sight. 

Nor can a National Church be heedless of the duty of 
education, which is not less the concern of religion than 
of the State. Each has its important part to play — the 
education of mind and morals is the duty of the State; 
but without religious training, which is the foundation 
of righteousness, intellectualism and ethical culture are 
a cul-de-sac. An ignorant nation with piety and right- 
eousness is better than a learned nation without aggres- 
sive belief in God and God's righteousness. To give the 
best in religion to children is the Church's responsibility, 
just as much as to give the best in knowledge is the 
State's. This Cathedral Foundation has already ex- 



SHALL LEAD THEM" 149 

pressed its sense of responsibility in effective terms. 
There is no worthy education which does not give educa- 
tion of conscience first place. 

Now I come to my last thought. A National Church 
in the present shattered state of Christendom cannot 
arrogate to itself the title of The National Church. It 
is with the vision of unity that we lay this corner-stone, 
a vision which the first Bishop of Washington, whose 
remains lie hard by in the Little Sanctuary, always held. 
It were better far to risk the loss of this Church's dis- 
tinctive character in a loyal effort to bring about the 
fulfilment of our Lord's prayer for unity than to sit 
in idle contemplation of a shattered Christendom. It is 
what we expect other communions to do. It is what we 
must do ourselves. But of this we may be well assured 
that whatever we lose will be that which is of men, our 
eccentricities, our insularity, our pride, our obtuseness, 
and we shall be the richer, not the poorer, for our 
loss. True men can never lose the truth, though 
sometimes they happily lose their limited conception 
of it in a larger vision of faith. With hopeful eyes 
we look for the day when, not in the imperfect patch- 
work of federation but in organic perfection, all the 
churches will lose themselves in the grandeur and 
unity of the one Holy Catholic Church wherein will 
be found contributions of high value from every com- 



150 "A CHILD SHALL LEAD THEM" 

munion which worships the Lord Jesus in sincerity 
a,nd truth. 

It is with this vision that we lay our corner-stone. 
Our eyes are searching for those fair things which can 
be seen only by the child and the childlike — a glorious 
Church without spot or wrinkle or any such thing, a 
unified nation made up of many races and bound to- 
gether by the Spirit of Christ, a wise people whose 
knowledge is ruled by an enlightened conscience. In 
order that these things may be we must go to Bethle- 
hem and kneeling at the cradle of the Nativity worship, 
praying that the childlike King of the Children of Men 
may make us as Himself, and that at last we may be 
numbered with His saints in glory everlasting. 



XII 
THAT I MAY KNOW HIM 1 

That I may know Him and the power of His Resurrection. Phil. iii t 10. 

THE foundation of this man's belief in a Risen Christ 
was not hearsay but personal experience. " Have 
I not seen Jesus our Lord?" S. Paul asks in another 
letter. This is not to say that the evidence of others 
found no place in the economy of his belief, for it did — 
"for I delivered unto you first of all," he writes to the 
Church in Corinth, "that which also I received." Then 
he goes on to group various authenticated manifestations 
of the Risen Christ, adding to the experience of others 
the key-stone of the arch so far as his own belief was con- 
cerned, his personal experience — "last of all, as unto 
one born out of due time, He appeared to me also." 

What is true of S. Paul's religion, which was wholly 
representative before it was in any detail unique, holds 
good in the case of every Christian — there is and can 

r Preached on the S. S. Chiyo Maru, Easter Day, 1912, crossing the 
one hundred and eightieth meridian. 

151 



152 THAT I MAY KNOW HIM 

be no substitute for personal experience. S. Paul's 
relation to Christianity is more akin to ours than is that 
of the other Apostles, for he, like us, never saw Jesus 
in the flesh. That he had an extraordinary vision of 
Christ which extended to his bodily senses is beyond 
dispute. But if he enjoyed this one psycho-physical 
experience, he did not reckon it as his only or chief 
spiritual asset, nor was it in the memory of it, but in the 
daily renewed vision of faith, that he lived his life. 
Even at a late date of writing he does not count himself 
to have apprehended. Christ is yet to be gained after 
the fashion that the rest of us must gain Him. The 
Apostle was still yearning, as though he were but a 
novice, to know Him and the power of His resurrection. 
The testimony of credible witnesses is valuable 
though not final. It must be kept in its proper place, 
even if it be the testimony of a Mary Magdalene or a 
Paul — of impassioned love or of intelligent enthusiasm. 
Otherwise the result is credulity rather than faith. 
Credulity is uncritical : faith puts things to the test and 
holds fast — indeed can hold fast — only that which it 
has proved. It makes no difference whether one lives 
an arm's length from the day of Jesus as did S. Paul, or 
centuries beyond as do we, the test of the Resurrection 
and the abolition of death is one and the same — personal 
experience of the Risen Christ. 



THAT I MAY KNOW HIM 153 

The function of external evidence in religion is to 
spur us on to spiritual adventure. For one man to say 
that he has seen the Lord or lived by His power is to 
constitute a challenge to the rest of us to repeat the 
experience in our own lives. Any high-grade human 
experience ipso facto becomes a universal heritage. 
This is markedly true in religion. 

The pioneer, consciously or unconsciously, blazes 
a trail open to the feet of all. The whole group of 
recorded manifestations of Jesus of the Resurrection to 
the various disciples are preserved to inform us that 
we, too, are expected to become credible witnesses of 
the Risen Christ, that we, too, must aspire to know Him 
and the power of His Resurrection. 

The personal experience of others is a torch at which 
to kindle personal experience for ourselves. It rouses 
expectancy and hope, it reveals to us our own capacity, 
and beckons us into a wonderful fellowship. Then, too, 
it forms in its collective aspect a check and balance 
dividing between phantasms and reality, self -hypnotism 
and fact. There is nothing more certain than that the 
most vivid reality in the lives of the first witnesses to 
the Resurrection was their personal contact with Christ. 
You cannot get consistent effects except from a con- 
stant cause. Moreover the measure of a cause in such 
circumstances is found in the effects. A real effect must 



154 THAT I MAY KNOW HIM 

have a real cause, a great effect a great cause, a resur- 
rection effect a resurrection cause. 

S. Paul was a preacher and an apostle and a teacher of 
the Gospel of the Resurrection, not merely of his own 
personal experience. To talk about great things that 
have happened to one, without regard to any benefit 
which may accrue to the hearers, is the empty prating 
of the egoist whose Gospel is himself. A true preacher is 
a would-be sharer of the best that has been given him. 
Because S. Paul had seen the Lord and learned to walk 
by faith, he burned with the loving desire for all men to 
have like experience. The flame, unquenched after all 
these centuries, still continues to kindle in men individ- 
ualized belief. 

So it is that you and I of to-day, when we come to 
examine the ultimate ground of our belief in the Gospel 
of the Resurrection, find it in our personal experience. 
"I have seen the Lord," we say. Some of us have seen 
Him more, some less clearly, but we have seen Him. 
The mists will drift in and sometimes it is night for the 
soul, but no one who has lingered near the tomb has 
failed in the end to hear His voice and see His form. 
For those who are willing to pay the cost, so history 
would seem to say in such lives as Francis of Assisi 
and Catherine of Genoa, there await manifestations 
hardly less vivid than that vouchsafed S. Paul. But 



THAT I MAY KNOW HIM 155 

only those who have capacity for this sort of vision can 
pay the cost. That is to say the mystics. However, this 
is of small moment. That which we desire is not a 
marvel but a steady pressure of Christ's life upon ours. 
That was the great thing in the life of the mystics, not 
their exceptional ecstasies. Nor were their ecstasies the 
cause of the resurrection power in their lives. It was 
the resurrection pressure that was the cause which gave 
them an extra clear and full moment of Christ-contact 
once or twice in their lives. We do not find S. Paul or 
the rest clamoring for or expecting a repetition of the 
extraordinary and exceptional. At the most advanced 
stage of their spiritual career their aspiration is toward 
what I would term normal fellowship with God such as 
is equally the privilege and duty of all alike. 

To every serious person a vision of Christ is more than 
a consolation, as it was to the forlorn woman to whom 
in His incomparable solicitude He hastened to appear, 
when the dew of His resurrection birth was all fresh 
upon Him. It is that, but it is also a progressive power, 
an inspiration to sustained and sober effort, a complete 
philosophy of life. To know Christ is to know the per- 
manent character of God, and the permanent character 
of man, which is the sum total of knowledge. 

1. The Risen Christ reveals to each one with whom 
He establishes personal relationship, God's permanent 



156 THAT I MAY KNOW HIM 

character as Love. Love is undaunted and irrepressible 
— "it suffereth long." Rejection and contempt cannot 
quench its flame. It is more wonderful and beautiful 
that, after the way men treated Him, Christ should 
have come back again to their society in order to press 
His tenderness and strength against the thorny bosom 
of human life, than that He should have conquered 
death. His resurrection was a restoration of Himself 
to those who had cast Him from their midst by denial 
and desertion. 

Love, thus revealed, knows how to continue loving 
the unloving without weariness or resentment. It is 
superior to a failure on the part of the beloved to re- 
spond and give like for like. The Christ we learn to know 
is the Christ of many returns. Once and again we find 
Him standing by us as we weep beside the tomb of 
dead hopes, shattered ideals, and barren resolutions. 
Out of our failures He weaves for us victories. 

This is Love's method. First it stoops. The eternal 
by incarnation expresses itself in terms of time. The 
worst of which time is capable, is forthwith converted 
into the choicest language of God, with the Cross as the 
acme of His eloquence. 

Then Love rises. The eternal by resurrection elevates 
all things into the atmosphere of the transcendent. 
Time, crammed with its medley of human happenings, 



THAT I MAY KNOW HIM 157 

finds its best expression in terms of the eternal. All 
history becomes a process of the Spirit of God. The 
strength of nations to realize themselves, the web of 
human intercourse in market and drawing-room, the 
activities of intellect in library and laboratory, pass 
under the review of the Risen Christ, who controls all 
dartings to and fro of the shuttle of human life. Com- 
mon concerns assume the dignity of high worth — "all 
differences of performance as also of ability disappear. 
. . . All men are equally near to God, and objects of 
equal love. " 

St. The Risen Christ reveals man's permanent charac- 
ter. Man is destined to be forever man. Jesus of the 
Cross and Jesus of the Resurrection are one and 
the same. Death neither mars nor radically alters the 
human. Death is not the conclusion of the human and 
our introduction into some completely different order 
of being, angelic or ghoulish. Manhood according to 
God's design, as it is capable of being worked out on 
earth, was so well executed that it cannot be improved 
upon. The Christian's life of mortality is the beginning 
of the best. His conception of death is not as of a blank 
wall beyond which lie fantastic shapes in a valley of 
gloom, but rather as of a door into a garden where all 
that is ignobly human perishes from lack of nourishment, 
and all that is nobly human flourishes in fertile soil. 



158 THAT I MAY KNOW HIM 

Those who have antedated us in the pilgrimage through 
the grave, from which none are exempt, are at this very 
hour superbly human. They wear a humanity that is 
not only quite as lovable as it was yesterday when their 
breath was warm in their bodies, but doubly so in that 
character is steadily mounting toward that limitless 
best which is their destiny. The limitations of per- 
sonality, as we know it, are then done away by our 
introduction into the unity of the countless, whereby 
our exaggerated consciousness of the ego finds its cure 
in a balanced share of the universal consciousness. 
Lying still further beyond is that completion of our 
human perfection in the body that shall be. Then shall 
we see Him as we are seen, know Him as we are known, 
and, best of all, love Him as we are loved — as sons of 
God, it is true, but for that reason none the less, rather 
all the more, as sons of men. 



XIII 
OPPORTUNITY 1 

The Lord Himself is the portion of mine inheritance, and of my cup: 
thou shalt maintain my lot. The lot is fallen unto me in a fair ground: 
Yea, I have a goodly heritage. Psalm xvi, 6, 7. 

T WONDER how many of us feel that this describes 
A our own case. The words are those of aman wholly 
contented with his lot in life. His present opportunities 
are such as to rouse his enthusiasm, and his future is a 
source of joy to him as he anticipates the good things 
that line the morrow's pathway. Genuine contentment 
is a rarely beautiful characteristic. Of course I do not 
mean the stagnant contentment that succumbs to 
environment, but the progressive, lively spirit that is 
busy availing itself of to-day's opportunities, beating 
unruly conditions into shape and at the same time 
anticipating better things for to-morrow. 

We seem to be hampered by a constitutional per- 
versity which blinds us to the magnitude of our present 

1 Preached in the American Cathedral, Manila, on Sunday morning, 
June 14, 1908. 

159 



100 OPPORTUNITY 

opportunities and denies contentment much more than 
a night's lodging in our souls. It is the forbidden that 
seems the home of opportunity rather than that which is 
to be had for the asking. 

7 would have gone; God bade me stay: 
I would have worked; God bade me rest. 
He broke my will from day to day. 
He read my yearnings unexpressed 
And said them nay. 

Now I would stay; God bids me go: 
Now I would rest; God bids me work. 
He breaks my heart tossed to and fro, 
My soul is wrung with doubts that lurk 
And vex it so. 

I go. Lord, where thou sendest me; 
Day after day I plot and moil: 
But, Christ my God, when will it be 
That I may let alone my toil 
And rest with Thee t 

Contentment is found only in the assurance that God 
controls our lot and that for us the best opportunity 
that we could have to-day is that which we have. 
Emersonian transcendentalism is winsome to the ear, 
but we are too prone to do our nature the injustice of 
writing ourselves down as too small to turn it into prac- 
tical aid. Emerson indicates a high degree of content- 
ment and by no means one that we should not aspire 



OPPORTUNITY 161 

to when he says: "You are preparing with eagerness to 
go and render a service to which your talent and your 
taste invite you, the love of men and the hope of fame. 
Has it not occurred to you that you have no right to go 
unless you are equally willing to be prevented from 
going?" 

The world is overflowing with opportunities that 
become fully visible only when we find ourselves in 
danger of being severed from our present lot and trans- 
planted elsewhere. The youth goes out from his home 
to begin the battle of life armed only with his own 
merits. As he turns for a last look at his childhood's 
associations, it is as though a veil were lifted and the 
splendor of it all dawns upon him as never before. He 
sees the beauty of the commonplace and is smitten with 
regret that he did not live and love better. Penitence, 
which is but the sincere recognition of the greatness of 
unheeded or slighted opportunities, lies on the thres- 
hold of every change, whether of removal or death. 
And even those who in the eyes of most of us appear to 
have been naked of opportunity awake to the fact that 
their lot too was cast in a fair ground. The robber who 
died with Christ never had a fair chance as we usually 
reckon. A wild son of the desert, he always was on 
close terms with bloodshed and violence. But penitence 
seizes him as he plants his foot on the threshold of death. 



162 OPPORTUNITY 

He laments the insult he has offered his lot and claims 
pain as his rightful heritage. 

How shabby and mean such reflections make our 
querulousness with our lot appear! Many of us are 
spending our vitality lamenting over the barrenness of 
our life. It is, we complain, swept of real opportunity. 
It is true there are those who have no opportunity — 
the child of the East Side of New York with the inheri- 
tance of a stunted mind, a vicious nature, and an en- 
vironment of misery, for instance. But it is not so with 
any one of you. No, not one. Your lot is cast in a fair 
ground. Your discontent is vicious. We are rich, most of 
us, compared with Him who said, "Foxes have holes 
and birds of the air have nests but the Son of Man hath 
not where to lay his head"; or with the man of mean, 
weak presence and halting speech who preached such 
sermons as will continue to inspire after the last echo of 
the greatest orator has subsided into the stillness of the 
Arctic seas. 

1. The soul of opportunity is contentment. Content- 
ment is concentrated enough and sufficiently keen-eyed 
to survey thoroughly the immediate landscape. It 
becomes familiar with all it sees and learns to use to the 
best advantage all it touches. It finds treasures in the 
waste that the careless discard as useless or of small 
value. After all, opportunity can be found only by those 



OPPORTUNITY 163 

who possess character. There is no opportunity any- 
where for the querulous and vicious — they spoil all they 
touch. They turn a garden into a desert, and make a 
fruitful tree barren. 

2. Opportunity lies here not yonder. The little boy was 
often weary for he shared the poverty and labor of the 
farm. But at sunset he found pleasure in sitting on 
the brow of the hill and looking at a palace far across the 
valley all ablaze with glory — it was surely a palace for 
its windows were gold and diamond. One day he took a 
journey to the palace and when he reached it, alas, it 
was only a common farmhouse like his own with win- 
dows of glass. But there were warm hearts within 
which made it a palace. A little playmate gave him a 
happy day and he told her how he had expected to find 
there the gold and diamond windows. "Ah," she said, 
"wait till sunset and I will show you them." And when 
evening drew near she pointed across the valley where 
a distant house lay wrapped in the splendor of the sun- 
set. "Why," he said, "that is my home!" When he 
reached his father's house after his day of pleasure his 
parents asked him what he had learned. "I have 
learned, " he said, "that I live in a house with gold and 
diamond windows." 

Yes, the big things are here, not yonder. Place be- 
comes great only because of great personality. Place 



164 OPPORTUNITY 

can never make a small man great — only ridiculous. 
A big place, a place where the atmosphere is composed 
of the souls of great men who have gone, must always 
have to occupy it a soul as big as it already is, or bigger 
— else the throne will become a mockery and the papacy 
a hissing. Big things and places are where big causes 
and men are. We, here, can make these Islands, a few 
years since obscure, unimportant, great forever — if we 
first make ourselves great by doing our small tasks great- 
ly and allying ourselves consciously with great causes. 
Otherwise we shall make them worse than obscure. 
Political jugglery, selfishness, insincerity, and American 
vice will make them notorious. Only American great- 
ness, I mean the greatness of individual Americans on 
the spot, can make them great. We must apply the 
best that we are to our tasks. That is the first step. 
"Where the heart is there the gods sojourn and not in 
any geography of fame. . . . Here we are; and, if we 
tarry a little, we may come to learn that here is best. 
See to it, only, that thyself is here; — and art and nature, 
hope and fate, friends, angels, and the Supreme Being, 
shall not be absent from the chamber where thou 
sittest." 

3. An opportunity is great or small as it is or is not 
consciously attached to a great cause. A slender tie is 
sufficient to unite a common duty and a weighty cause 



OPPORTUNITY 165 

just as the cable which joins the puny island to the 
huge American continent is but a thin thread. We must 
each of us be closely and intelligently related to our 
immediate task, but that does not forbid our marrying 
our simple activities to the progress of nations, to the 
vast complexity of whirling worlds, to eternities and 
infinities. It is man's right and privilege to tread the 
earth and scan the heavens at the same moment. 

You and I are patriots. We would die to preserve 
the integrity of the nation. We would champion some 
great cause to promote this end. But there is no call to 
be tragic. The work can be more effectively done in a 
simpler way, here, in the home. America is not yet a 
nation of homes where love reigns supreme. We are 
somewhat more careless than other countries of ties of 
blood, and the permanence of the marriage bond. You, 
who would be a patriot, find your opportunity in the 
bosom of your family. The cause of the family is the 
cause of the nation. The forbearance, the thoughtful- 
ness, the self-sacrifice that makes for the completeness 
of your family makes for the integrity of the nation. 
So, too, in social life. Carry into it something better 
than flippant lips. Carry into it a character that has 
savor and sanctifies as well as pleases. 

There are those of you here who are civil servants. 
Your work is routine, but it becomes something better 



166 OPPORTUNITY 

than mechanical when you pour the oil of loyalty into 
its wheels. The creaking changes to music. The Gover- 
nor-General a few days ago castigated with just severity 
disloyalty. It should meet with the same treatment 
wherever it appears, for the proper place for disloyalty 
is the gallows. 

Again, a Church that is set on counting its communi- 
cants and that moves heaven and earth to make a new 
Episcopalian, or Presbyterian, or Roman Catholic is a 
wretched little sect in God's sight, whatever be its 
pretensions and claims. The Church is a symbol and 
instrument of the Kingdom of God, and the moment it is 
made an end in itself it becomes like a selfish man, a 
menace to God's purposes. Your loyalty and mine 
consists not in speech that defends our Church but in 
our using our opportunities. " In so far as our cause is a 
predatory cause which lives by overthrowing the loyalty 
of others, it is an evil cause because it involves dis- 
loyalty to the very cause of loyalty itself." Our Church 
is small in numbers, but it can become great in character 
and influence if it serves not itself but the Kingdom of 
God of which it is the symbol and instrument. The 
unchurched are wandering aimlessly all about us, and 
the neglected are waiting for our helping hand. Let us 
seize the opportunity. Other churches have our good- 
will so far as they, too, labor for God's Kingdom and 



OPPORTUNITY 167 

not for their own statistical aggrandizement or for 
absolute power. 

Our lot, then, yours and mine, is cast in a fair ground. 
Together let us learn contentment, and in quiet vigil- 
ance make un taken or partially taken opportunities our 
own. The tie between you and me, the tie of chief 
pastor and people, the tie of fellow-countrymen in a 
far land is trustful and tender and strong — so strong 
that the other day, when a strain was put upon it to 
break it, it seemed unbreakable. Your loyalty to the 
cause of which I am official representative and leader 
expressed itself in the touching address you made me, an 
address full of loving hyperbole. 

We are here in the Orient, you and I, to cling to the 
ideal life to which you referred and to dare the greatest 
task the world has ever set itself — to unite East and 
West in mutual understanding and service. 

I have already answered your address 1 in an action 
which I must leave to tell you its own significance. 
Now it remains for us to pick up our unused opportuni- 
ties for the rest of the time we are to be co-workers. If 
I leave either in the near or far future, it will not be 
because I am weary, or because I have exhausted the 
opportunities of the situation, but because Divine 
counsels which I have been learning to discern and obey 
1 An address asking me to continue my work in the Philippines. 



168 OPPORTUNITY 

through a lifetime, part of it rebellious, advise it. In 
the meantime contentment and its handmaid oppor- 
tunity lie at our feet, in our homes, and offices, and 
activities. Let us disperse each one of us to our own 
house and, I think, — I hope, that we will find it to be a 
house with windows of gold and diamond. 



XIV 
A GLORIOUS MINISTRY 1 

/ hold not my life of any account, as dear unto myself, so that I may 
accomplish my course, and the ministry which I received from the Lord 
Jesus, to testify the gospel of the grace of God. Acts xx, 2^. 

THIS is a moment of vivid interest. Solemn, yes, 
but thrilling, for the solemn is the thrilling. The 
occasion touches the life of everyone here, in that we 
are in the presence of that enterprise before which all 
else pales — the ministerial enterprise. A new expedi- 
tion is setting out for the ambitious purpose of trans- 
forming human life — a prodigious task, but one which 
knows not the word failure. God honors us by His 
habit of issuing a mandatory invitation to undertake 
the seemingly impossible. He stirs you, who to-day are 
to receive His commission, by His inviting command to 
carry the dawn into the sunset and the noonday into 
the night; to consider nothing hopeless and no one 
insignificant. You are to go striding out into the world's 
aching need with adequate succor in your hands. 

1 Preached at the Advent Ordination, in Canterbury Cathedral, on 
Sunday, December 18, 1910. 

169 



170 A GLORIOUS MINISTRY 

The occasion is of moment not only to those who are 
thus faring forth, but also to everyone here. We 
weather-beaten seniors in the Ministry welcome with 
grateful hearts this reinforcement of fresh vitality and 
added wisdom. You lay folk receive with eagerness the 
treasure of word and sacrament entrusted to these new 
stewards, and in turn offer them that responsive service 
without which the Ministry cannot avail. Even the 
youngest lad present has his place and inspiration in 
this Ordination Service, for it is illustrative. Soon God 
will lay His hand on each, and give him his position in 
the world of men — possibly calling some of you to the 
same high vocation in Christ Jesus; but, however that 
may be, calling all to specific and important work. 

A high vocation it is, indeed ! What sort of persons, 
then, should be selected to undertake this task in which 
difficulty and opportunity are so strangely blended, but 
where privilege ultimately swallows up toil? I think it 
should be men who can say with sincerity just what S. 
Paul said: "I hold not my life of any account, as dear 
unto myself, so that I may accomplish my course, and 
the Ministry which I received from the Lord Jesus, to 
testify the Gospel of the grace of God." The Apostle 
stands before us as typical rather than singular. There 
was that which was unique and individual in him; but, 
in the main, he is a normal representative of the Chris- 



A GLORIOUS MINISTRY 171 

tian Ministry. Were he here to-day to speak his mind, 
he would identify himself with us, and treat with harsh 
hand whatever threatened to obscure or impair the 
brotherly relation between himself and us. What he 
was we must aim to be. You who are to-day launching 
out on your great adventure must begin right, and we 
who have journeyed far along our course must renew 
our vows and burnish our enthusiasm, according to the 
pattern he has given. The Ministry calls for men, for 
men of purpose, for commissioned men, for inspired men. 
1. We must be men. There is no substitute for that 
glorious thing which we call manhood. It is the founda- 
tion upon which everything human rests. Talent, 
brilliancy, skill, are worse than useless — they are 
dangerous to the possessor and to society, unless there 
is manhood beneath. S. Paul would be recognized in any 
society for a man. Virility is too subtle a characteris- 
tic to define, but it is unmistakable when we see it. 
It is mountainous in its greatness, crystal clear in its 
transparent beauty. It is a blending of experience and 
guilelessness, acuteness and innocence, reserve and 
sympathy — in a word, strength which brings 

" your life up square 
With your accepted thought, and holds it there" 

What a many-sided manhood S. Paul brought into 



172 A GLORIOUS MINISTRY 

the Ministry ! He was a scholar, a statesman, a crafts- 
man whose skilled and calloused hands ministered to his 
own necessities, a traveller, and a mystic. His mysti- 
cism took hold of his varied gifts and made each one a 
spiritual force. 

The complaint is sometimes made, not without 
grounds, that the preparation for the Ministry, as it 
now is, lacks in something. The young cleric is not 
equipped with adequate experience, so that the early 
part of his career is too experimental to be valuable. 
Perhaps we may find it wise before long to require of 
every candidate for Holy Orders that, either before or 
during or immediately after his course of theological 
training — at any rate, prior to ordination — he should 
go out into the workaday world and prove himself by 
gaining that experience of men and things which can 
only come to those who work for their living. A couple 
of years thus spent would produce a larger-sized aver- 
age of manhood in the Ministry than we are accustomed 
to. You are to be congratulated in that, as I am told, 
you represent an unusually rich and varied experience 
of this very sort. But what is now dependent upon 
accident is too valuable for efficiency and too creative 
of manhood not to be made into a deliberately chosen 
factor in preparation for Holy Orders. 

2. We must be men of purpose "I hold not," says 



A GLORIOUS MINISTRY 173 

our type, "my life of any account as dear unto myself, 
so that I may accomplish my course, and the Ministry 
which I have received." His life was planned to the end. 
There was no veil obscuring his view. His orderly mind 
had measured the whole course. 

There are few things more admirable than fine man- 
hood exulting under the domination of a big purpose. 
Men of culture and privilege are dependent upon a 
purpose of magnitude to such a degree that they must 
have it or lose their manhood. It brings us as near that 
happiness or joy for which God created human life 
as is possible — a happiness which responds to no half- 
measures. It is to be found in the near and in the far 
distance; never in the middle. In the near lies concrete 
duty which holds the happiness of the day; in the far 
is the ultimate goal which holds the fundamental happi- 
ness of a whole life; in the middle stands the incomplete 
which pretends to be complete, big enough to interest 
though too small to inspire — ambitions and schemes 
which claim to be ultimate, but, when reached, crumble 
into disappointment. 

Our purpose must be of a kind that will in no wise 
be interfered with by death, but, on the contrary, be 
advanced. S. Paul's course was of more importance to 
him than the preservation of life and all that is summed 
up in that word, reputation, freedom, success, physical 



174 A GLORIOUS MINISTRY 

well-being, or even being — in short, everything a man 
holds dear. He laid his life upon his aim as upon an 
altar. Like the character in one of George Meredith's 
novels, he could exclaim, "I set my life upon my aim 
when I feel the object is of true worth. I win, or death 
hides from me my missing it." 

Who can fail to admire the man who, thinking that 
he has found an object of worth, almost merrily, 
certainly cheerfully, soars into the sky at imminent 
risk to life and limb in order to promote the conquest of 
nature, or who, day by day, imperils health and courts 
death in the laboratory in the hope of furthering biologi- 
cal research? One of your own empire-builders 1 after 
a grave illness wrote : " Life, I thought, was gone, and I 
rejoiced in the hope that my death would do for Sara- 
wak what my life had not been able to effect." 

Worthy as such objects as those quoted may be, 
none can have such high justification for laying his life 
upon his aim as the Minister of Christ. The preserva- 
tion of mere physical life and well-being is unimportant. 
Our purpose in ourselves and others is a work of trans- 
formation, not to substitute the spiritual for the natural, 
but to spiritualize the natural. To do this, we must not 
aim to "make the best of both worlds," but place the 
spiritual first. The material balance of the scale is 
1 Rajah Brooke. 



A GLORIOUS MINISTRY 175 

hanging too low. All the refinements with which we 
clothe matter fail to change its character. Too high a 
premium is set on mere life and its material trappings, 
the life which we share with lesser and lower animals. 
We must learn, and teach others how to discount it in 
the presence of a great purpose, "holding it of no 
account, as dear unto ourselves. " 

" A man must live. We justify 
Low shift and trick to treason high, 
A little vote for a little gold 
To a whole senate bought and sold. 
By that self-evident reply. 
But is it so ? Pray tell me why 
Life at such a cost you have to buy ? 
In what religion were you told 
A man must live ? 

There are times when a man must die. 
Imagine, for a battle cry, 
From soldiers, with a sword to hold — 
From soldiers, with the flag unrolled — 
This coward's whine, this liar's lie: 
A man must live!" 1 

3. We must be commissioned men. Our Ministry- 
can be received only from the Lord Jesus. A commis- 
sion from men will be totally inadequate for the per- 
formance of our task. I like to think of the Apostle 
Paul as being in the same category as ourselves. If he 
1 Charlotte Perkins Stetson, in her book of poems, In This Our World. 



176 A GLORIOUS MINISTRY 

exalts his commission, it is not to separate himself from, 
but to unite himself to, his fellows, and to stimulate 
others likewise to exalt their commission that they too 
may be bond-slaves of the Lord and servants of men. 
Our commission must have the same source as his, and 
be to the same end. It is further to be noted that he had 
only the same facilities for apprehending, and being 
apprehended by, Jesus Christ that we have. He never 
saw his Master in the flesh. His experiences with Him 
belonged to the subjective order, and were experiences 
of faith. He walked by faith, not by sight. 

As in his case, then, so in ours, commission comes 
from the direct touch of the Lord upon our lives — not 
by momentary, but a permanent touch. In my home- 
city stands a bronze statue of that great pastor and 
inspirer of men, Phillips Brooks. He is represented as 
delivering the Gospel message. Behind him stands 
another, whose right hand rests upon his shoulder. It is 
Jesus Christ, Pastor pastorum, at whose touch his life 
took fire, under whose touch it continued to flame until 
the end. 

Let the bronze declare its parable to you. In a few 
moments apostolic hands will be laid upon your heads, 
and you will feel a human touch. Is that all? No. 
However apostolic the channel, your commission does 
not come trickling down the ages from a distant source, 



A GLORIOUS MINISTRY 177 

with perhaps some leakage on its journey. The con- 
nection is with heaven. Your Ministry is received 
directly from Jesus Christ. But by faith you must turn 
the objective into the subjective, the historically au- 
thoritative into the mystically real, and the human 
touch will become to you the touch of God. What 
to the multitude was a peal of thunder or a voice was to 
Jesus a Divine message (John xii, 28, 29) ; what was to 
his companions a light or a sound was to S. Paul the 
Lord's face and voice (Acts ix; xxii). "What, when the 
sun rises, do you see? A round disc of fire, something 
like a guinea? Oh, no, no ! I see an innumerable 
company of the heavenly host crying ' Holy, holy, holy, 
is the Lord God Almighty. ' " When the human hands 
have been lifted, the Divine touch will linger. God's 
hand will ever remain upon your life to guide, to em- 
power, to inspire. Were I not convinced that there 
stands by me One who can use my very defects as a 
vehicle for His message, I would have neither the 
courage nor the power to address you as I am doing. 

The idea of commission has also its human side. 
Commission is through, as it is for, the whole Church, 
which is human society divinely organized. The Minis- 
try is neither given nor received with the intent to 
further sectarian thought and organization. There is 
a great difference between believing that your associa- 

13 



178 A GLORIOUS MINISTRY 

tion is with only a fragment of the Church, and, on the 
other hand, holding the conviction that the entire 
Church is behind you. The Minister who conceives his 
own communion to be the Church has a pathetic 
fragment as his propulsive force, nothing more. He 
who has that large conception, which includes in the 
Church all Christendom, and who refuses to allow our 
unhappy divisions to separate him in spirit from his 
fellow Christians, has an uplift and support which 
cannot be measured in words. If his responsibility is 
enhanced, his inspiration is proportionately increased. 
Claim, therefore, your commission from Christ's hand, 
and recognize the catholicity of your Ministry in origin 
and scope, a Ministry inferior to none, the peer of the 
best. 

4. We must be inspired men. Aspiration equips for 
inspiration. Our message is not our own. It comes 
from God to those who aspire to receive it. Our Minis- 
try is "to testify the Gospel of the grace of God," 
exactly as was S. Paul's. Good tidings, a rich, positive 
message, is to engage our minds and set our lips on fire. 
The world is waiting for inspiration. Do not send men 
empty away, as you are bound to do if you try to feed 
them on the husks of negation, so cheap and so futile, 
or of controversy in which the message is forgotten in 
the effort to rout the enemy. In the words of one of 



A GLORIOUS MINISTRY 179 

your modern writers, I would warn you against 
negation : 

"To deny is much more dangerous than to assert. 
In Goethe's drama the spirit that constantly denies, 
wer stets verneint, is Mephistopheles. An assertion may 
have some insight underlying it; an enthusiastic asser- 
tion is nearly always the outcome of a mustard-seed 
of truth, however overlaid with error it may be. But a 
denial may only signify a mental dislocation, a failure 
to understand, a lack of sympathy, a failure to appre- 
ciate a point of view, an absorption in some other mode 
of regarding truth. To deny rightly usually demands 
much completer knowledge than to assert. An assertion 
may be specific and minute — the result of a perception 
of a single instance. A denial, to be effective, may have 
to be large and comprehensive. And the larger its field, 
the more ambitious its scope, the more anxious would 
its promulgator be." Whatever negation does, it never 
inspires. 

With this let me conclude my message to you, my 
brothers, who begin your ministerial career at a time 
when my eyes are turned toward the close of mine, 
which, however distant, cannot be far off. If by dis- 
closing to you my own failures and errors I could inspire 
your exemption from similar troubles, how gladly would 
I do so. But this I can say, that where my Ministry 



180 A GLORIOUS MINISTRY 

has gone lame, the cause has lain in the neglect of the 
principles which I have enunciated. Under the spell of 
their inspiration go out into that service of love which 
leads straight into the love of service. The reward of 
service is capacity and, with the increased capacity, 
increased desire to serve. Some of you, perhaps most, 
will at first, and it may be always, labor in obscurity. 
A few, in days to come, may be called to conspicuous 
posts. Neither shun the one state nor covet the other. 
The moment a man considers that work is of value 
because it is conspicuous he has taken the first step to 
rob it of its worth. If, on the other hand, he depreciates 
it because it is obscure, he immediately slips into cul- 
pable inefficiency. The value of work is not in its size 
or setting, but in the man who does it. Work can make 
a man great only when he has made work great. Then 
the least duty takes on noble proportions at his com- 
mand, and conspicuousness will have no power to 
dazzle, obscurity no power to depress. 

The best that I can wish for you is that you may be 
loyal to your Ministry with the loyalty of S. Paul — 
that you may demand manhood for yourselves, lay 
your life on your purpose, glory in your commission, 
aspire until you are inspired — and, at the end, be able 
to say with him, "I have fought the fight. I have 
finished the course. I have kept the faith; henceforth 



A GLORIOUS MINISTRY 181 

there is laid up for me the crown of righteousness which 
the Lord the righteous Judge shall give me at that day." * 



1 A few days after this sermon was preached a little boy asked me how 
a bishop was made. I explained that he was called to his office by the 
people of God, adding: "Perhaps you will be a bishop some day, 
Hugh" — then to his aunt, "Perhaps Hugh is going into the Ministry." 
"Why, Hugh, I thought you were going into the Army." Very serious- 
ly came the reply: " But you know I might be called. " 

Does not this indicate what the constant pressure of a mother on 
her boy might do to help him to high vocation? 



Ill 

THE NATION 



18S 



XV 
HYPOCRISY 1 

And why beholdest thou the mote that is in thy brother's eye, but consider- 
est not the beam that is in thine own eye? Or how wilt thou say to thy 
brother: Let me pull out the mote out of thine eye; and behold, a beam is in 
thine own eye ? Thou hypocrite, first cast out the beam out of thine own 
eye; and then shalt thou see clearly to cast out the mote out of thy brother s 
eye. Matt, vii, 3, <£, 5. 

I" THINK that the drift of this passage is that a coarse 
•*■ character cannot do refined work. The Saviour 
says about people who have a beam in their eye, that is 
to say who have some large fault which they are making 
no effort to remove, that they are great critics, and their 
criticism takes the unbalanced form of trying to per- 
form a very delicate surgical operation without having 
the necessary visual power. They are always ready to 
examine a mote in their brother's eye, but they do it 
without having eyesight themselves. A coarse character 
is a critical character, a character that is prone to 
gossip taking the form of destruction of our neighbor's 
character. 

1 Preached at the Cathedral of S. Mary and S. John, Manila, on 
Sunday, July 15, 1906. 

185 



186 HYPOCRISY 

A coarse character, that is a character that is not 
making any effort at self-improvement, has a second 
defect, which is inability to improve another's character. 
It is not that he may not, but that he cannot remove the 
mote which is in his brother's eye. Yonder woman who 
is careless of her own character while trying to train 
her child cannot expect her little one to become refined. 
And do not blame the child if she develops badly. It is 
quite impossible, O mother, to do that most delicate 
thing that human life can spend itself upon, to train a 
little child, unless you are diligent in training yourself . 
If we are not making any effort towards self -improve- 
ment, you and I, if we discern in ourselves that ugly 
critical faculty which ends in slander and gossip, though 
we may have a wish to aid others we cannot. The beam 
is in our eye, and we cannot see how to pull the mote out 
of our brother's eye. If that is our position we won't 
blame anyone but ourselves, because it isn't chance that 
has put us into the position which we hold spiritually — 
morally and intellectually too, perhaps — but we got 
there by being careless of our inner growth. A pretty 
hopeless position, perhaps you think; but Christ doesn't 
think so. Christ despises a hypocrite, and He says you 
are a hypocrite if you are criticizing and finding fault 
with others who are quite as good as you yourself, or 
perhaps a good deal better. But, He continues, don't be 



HYPOCRISY 187 

a hypocrite any longer. "Cast out the beam out of 
thine own eye" and then spiritual power will come to 
you and you will be able to do a spiritual task for others. 

You mother will be able to bend that little child's 
life so that it will be in line with God's, and she will 
become a noble woman. The cure for a coarse character 
lies in earnest effort toward self -improvement; for the 
thing that will empower us most of all for the work of 
lifting others up, is the improvement of ourselves. 

Sometimes the improvement takes the guise of a 
surgical operation: "If thy right hand offend thee, cut 
it off; if thy right eye offend thee, pluck it out." It may 
be if a man wants to be really a force in society that he 
will have to do some such thing as that with himself; 
and isn't it striking that the coarse character is harsh 
with other people's failings, but the refined character 
is very stern and severe with himself? 

In these times many of us feel personally responsible 
for social conditions. It is inborn in us: we come to 
consciousness with the conviction that each one of us is 
his brother's keeper. We have a sense in our day of 
collective unity that brings the ends of the earth 
together and makes us understand the words of S. Paul: 
" God made of one blood all nations of men." 

When I say that we are responsible for the condition 
of society I do not mean that each one of us is to con- 



188 HYPOCRISY 

stitute himself or herself a social reformer and attack 
each vice that is to be found; such people are more or 
less of a nuisance and do not do much good. It is indeed 
a pitiful sight to see "a reformer in search of a griev- 
ance." What I mean is that there are always close to us 
some things which are so intimately connected with our 
lives that if we are at all true to our conviction that we 
have a direct responsibility for such conditions, we can 
sway whole masses of people by our own demeanor. 

There are too many, I am afraid, who sit down in the 
presence of evils from a false humility, from a lack of 
consciousness that personality always counts if it is 
thrown in the scale of righteousness, and do not take 
any action whatever to remedy the evils they see about 
them. Some years ago one of the bishops of our Church, 
in the presence of a considerable group of men who had 
been sitting without making any protest whatever 
against an injustice, lifted up his voice and made his 
protest and said, "This must not be." It was a dis- 
agreeable thing to do, but he felt that it had to be done. 
And after he had done it (none of the men about him 
had said one word to aid), when he had finished his 
protest, and had taken his seat, there was a general buzz 
of applause, and cries of "That's right, Bishop," and 
the bishop turned to these men and said : " Gentlemen, 
you represent a certain type of citizens who sit down in 



HYPOCRISY 189 

the presence of evil and never lift your voice to remedy 
it, forgetting your personal responsibility." 

Since I went North, a movement making for right- 
eousness has taken very definite form. It is a movement 
against what I suppose is the most specious evil in the 
Philippine Islands. I have been in a remote part of the 
Island of Luzon, and until a few days ago I had seen no 
papers for more than a month, so that I was unaware of 
the existence of the league which has begun its career — 
the Moral Progress League; but in the short time that I 
have been within reach of information I have learned 
something of what is going on. Last Friday I reached 
Dagupan, and that evening I was asked by a man there 
if I did not want to go to a meeting of the Moral Prog- 
ress League. I went, and found in the school house a 
fairly large gathering of Filipino men. The Governor of 
the province, the presidente of the town and the conse- 
jales were taking a more or less prominent part. One of 
the officers of the League laid the subject before the 
Filipinos, and in less than half an hour the council had 
decided to take immediate action and close the cock- 
pits in Dagupan. 

I could not help feeling that whatever its limitations 
(and I recognize that such methods as are employed in 
this movement have their limitations) the Spirit of 
God is in it, and the thing, perhaps, that heartens one 



190 HYPOCRISY 

most of all is that it is the outcome of Filipino feeling 
and Filipino conscience. But American society — I am 
speaking of it in its entirety — has not done one single 
thing to put this movement on a higher plane than it is 
on at this moment, and I say that I am ashamed of 
American society, and I feel the blight and stain on my 
own life, and you, my brethren, should feel it to. Oh! 
It is a shame, a shame. 

But it is not too late. Our credit as Christians, to say 
nothing of our duty as citizens of the American Repub- 
lic, compels us. The movement came from Filipinos as 
you all know; and you know the details better than I 
do. Here is a paper — El Renacimiento — that does not 
always say wise things, struggling against apathy and 
ignorance month in and month out until at last the fire 
is kindled and the movement takes shape, and then 
certain courageous men of your blood and mine help 
the movement along; and the great crowd of Americans, 
I suppose, have idly clapped their hands, though some 
have sneered and some have opposed. I think that you 
and I are going to take a much stronger stand than 
hitherto. We must organize and show the Filipinos 
that before we set about pulling the mote out of their 
eye we shall pluck the beam out of our own eye. 

I said that there were limitations in a movement of 
this kind, and I want to emphasize this fact because I 



HYPOCRISY 191 

do not want you to think that I am carried away by 
emotionalism. I know the meaning of what might be 
termed "mob enthusiasm." I have just been reading a 
book by Rosadi, the most eminent criminal lawyer in 
Italy. He tells of the power of collective enthusiasm in 
crowds and how perfectly fickle a crowd is. One in- 
teresting thing that he touches upon is that in mobs or- 
dinarily the first impulse is given by women and 
children; then what he calls "collective suggestion" 
travels like lightning through the whole crowd. Now 
this "collective suggestion" works equally for good, 
and we must avail ourselves of it. 

I say that I am quite aware of the limitations of a 
movement of this kind, but I am equally sure that the 
movement is at once going to emancipate many Filipinos 
who are eager to be free from this great social vice but 
who have not had quite enough strength to throw it off 
unaided. More than this, it will educate children; 
whatever else the movement does or does not do, it will 
tend to educate the young mind. But I am not here to 
speak to absent people, I am not here to talk to the 
Filipinos and tell them what they ought to do, and 
ought not to do, though I will say this, that the Roman 
Catholic Church has upon it at this moment a heavy 
responsibility, and I believe that the Apostolic Dele- 
gate and the Archbishop are men enough to direct 



192 HYPOCRISY 

Filipino priests throughout this Archipelago so that 
they will be instructed to become reformers to the 
extent of using their influence against gambling; and 
then the movement which is being maintained by the 
Moral Progress League will have greater power and will 
accomplish greater results. 

The question in my mind is what it is incumbent 
upon the American and English and German popula- 
tion, all of the foreign population, to do. We must do 
something; we cannot sit down idly and watch things: 
we must play our part. It is a source both of surprise 
and regret to me that the action that the Commission 
has taken has been dragged from time. One thinks 
of the Philippine Commission as being endowed not 
merely with the duty of political leadership but of moral 
leadership. I know that our President considers that he 
occupies something more than a political stool: he 
occupies a moral throne. And so should it be with the 
Governor and the Commission here. You know the old 
Romans used to say: Senator es boni viri, autem senatus 
mala bestia. "The Senators are good men, but the 
Senate is a vile beast." And we can say that of our 
Senate in the United States to-day. There are good 
men in the Senate as Mr. Lodge has asserted quite 
recently, and no one will deny what he says, but col- 
lectively, as a legislative entity, senatus mala bestia 3 and 



HYPOCRISY 193 

does not represent the nation. But we do not wish to 
have to say it of the Commission. One looks to the 
Philippine Commission to-day for something more than 
political leadership. Aye ! and in the name of the 
American community I demand that they show them- 
selves moral leaders; and you will back me up ! . . . 

Now what is the difficulty that is in our way? What 
is the obstacle that prevents us citizens from throwing 
all our weight on the side of the Filipinos that are trying 
to rid themselves of their great burden? You know as 
well as I do; it is because so many of us are gamblers. 
Sometimes it is said that the pulpit is not fair; that the 
pulpit will denounce things and not give the pews an 
opportunity to reply. I am going to forestall the objec- 
tion by affording anyone who wishes a chance to answer 
here and now what I am about to say. 

My assertion is that moderate gambling is a vice, 
and it is as respectable to be a moderate liar, or a 
moderate thief as to be a moderate gambler. The effect 
on the character, if not equal, is at any rate similar. 
I lay this down as a thesis, and any man that is willing 
to stand up and defend poker, or any woman who is 
willing to defend bridge whist when played for money 
or expensive prizes is at liberty to speak; but if you do 
speak, I say remember who stands among us, — Jesus 
Christ, and if your moderate gambling is something 
13 



194 HYPOCRISY 

that can be defended in the presence of Jesus Christ : I 
wait for some one to speak. I am not doing this for 
dramatic effect: I think you know me well enough to 
know that I am real, and if any man has it in his mind to 
say anything in favor of gambling, let him speak. It is 
unconventional, I know, but I am an unconventional 
man. It is a serious moment. 

No one speaks. Then I reassert that gambling is con- 
temptible in anyone who pretends to self-respect, and 
reprehensible to God and His Son Jesus Christ. I main- 
tain that the difference between poker and cock-fighting, 
between bridge whist played for money, and panguin- 
gue, 1 is a matter of whitewash. I do not want to be 
mistaken; someone once said of words that I spoke that 
I was opposed to bridge whist. I don't know the game 
except in a general way, but I should say that it is an 
admirable in-door game. Poker I think is a contempt- 
ible game; if it were not for the money risked, poker 
would drop out of existence. Whist is entirely different; 
it is a good game, a game of the intellect and a game of 
skill, and I commend it; but I maintain that when 
bridge whist is played for money or for expensive prizes 
as distinguished from badges of victory, or a trophy 
held, but never owned, by a winner, as it is in Manila, 
it isn't a bit different from the cock-pit or from the 
1 A native gambling game. 



HYPOCRISY 195 

roulette table at Monte Carlo. The only distinction is 
that the thing called " society " has dipped its brush in 
whitewash and has whitewashed bridge whist played for 
money. Now, obviously, there are some of us who 
cannot as yet join in the movement of the Moral 
Progress League. I do not think that cock-fighting is 
such a brutal thing: so far as a matter of that sort can 
be devoid of brutality, cock-fighting is. It would seem 
that a stab with the sharp gaff usually is soon fatal. 
And the natives do not go to the cock-pits because they 
are attracted by any brutal exhibition, they go in order 
that there may be an opportunity for gambling, and the 
most evil thing at the cock-pit is the gambling. I think 
that if the gambling were stopped, cock-fighting would 
stop of itself. x 

If a game is worth playing at all, it is worth playing 
for that which it gives, though it must not be abused or 
used to excess so as to become a vocation. What Horace 
Walpole said in the eighteenth century of old-fashioned 
whist is true of bridge — "It has spread an universal 
opium over the whole nation," chiefly because the 
gambling that accompanies it leads the players into 
excess. It ceases to be a recreation, and becomes an 
exhaustion. Again, Horace Walpole says: "The gam- 

1 The practice of cock-fighting is gradually being ousted by clean 
amateur athletics. 



196 HYPOCRISY 

bling fever has taken possession of every part of society." 
I hope that this is not entirely true now, but the un- 
fortunate thing is that it has taken hold of the leaders of 
society, in New York, in my old home Boston, and here 
in Manila. I am going to quote again, this time from 
Addison in the Spectator: "It behooves persons of dis- 
tinction with their power and example to preside over 
diversions and pastimes in such manner as to check 
anything that tends to corruption of manners, or which 
is too mean or trivial for the entertainment of reason- 
able creatures." Society leaders are, so to speak, 
"persons of distinction/ ' and Addison defines your 
duty. It would be sad indeed if the poor Filipinos were 
to purify their lives of gambling and we who are just 
as bad as they, save for a coat of whitewash, did 
nothing. We are provided with other diversions and 
pastimes, the Filipinos have almost nothing — I know 
the dull gray of their lives well enough. Suppose I were 
to ask all those really willing to place themselves on the 
side of clean sport for a year from this date to stand up ; 
I wonder if I would get a response. Will you do it? Will 
you pluck the beam from your eye here in the presence 
of Jesus Christ, in order that you may cast your strength 
on the side of righteousness? 

I think that one of the weaknesses of the Moral 
Progress League is that it has announced no construe- 



HYPOCRISY 197 

tive platform. The Filipinos that give up cock-fighting 
must have some amusement: you and I have all we 
want, but these poor people have nothing at all. But 
they must have something. You know what Christ 
said about cleaning a house and putting no inhabitants 
in it: it will soon be filled with devils; and the last state 
of the house will be worse than the first. We should 
have clean occupants ready to step in. But as for you 
and me, we have all that we want and to spare. All that 
I ask of you is that you give up something that your 
own consciences protested against the first time you 
did it. I am sure your best self is even now saying: " Oh, 
I am on your side, I am on the side of righteousness and 
of Jesus Christ; I want to have a good character; I do 
not want to be coarse." It is that side that must be 
asserted, that the homeland may know that one city at 
least, through its leaders of society, through its persons 
of distinction, has given its influence for righteousness. 
There are three reasons why I want you to do what 
your own consciences tell you you ought to do — I am 
speaking definitely, you see, to those who have a beam 
in their eye which they wish to cast out. In the first 
place, because gambling degrades God's good gifts. 
I shall quote again, this time from Isaac Walton. He 
says, speaking in that wonderful treatise of his on the 
art of angling, on true sport, that it is the sort of thing 



198 HYPOCRISY 

you turn to when you " purpose to give rest to your mind, 
and divest yourself of your more serious business." So 
I say that God gives us power of social amusement, 
which is a wonderful thing in its moral training. Take, 
for instance, foot-ball. As one who played in the rush 
line, I cannot think of the game without wanting to be 
there in the midst of it once more. Games are good to us 
for amusement, and clean amusement, like clean work, 
is a means by which character attains its full stature. 
We must see to it that, as Roger Ascham says, "honest 
pastime may recover again that place and right that 
idleness, unthrifty gaming and vice hath put it from." 
The only true sportsman is he who defends the dignity 
of sport. I come now to the second reason why we must 
take the beam out of our eye, because self-respect 
demands it. "What shall it profit a man to gain the 
whole world if he lose his own soul?" What does it 
profit you to gain the prize at bridge whist and lose 
just so much more of your self-respect, of your charac- 
ter? What does it profit you? I am ashamed to be 
obliged to plead with people to give up that which is 
degrading. 

And thirdly, you are out here in the Philippine 
Islands not for a little gaiety and pleasure, not merely 
in order that you may make money, not that you may 
get fame and prominence. You are in the Philippine 



HYPOCRISY 199 

Islands as representatives of the American nation, and 
the American nation is going to be judged by the Fili- 
pinos from what you do and what you say. And here 
we have a movement among Filipinos to purify life, 
and American society must lend them positive aid. It is 
impossible for us to do it until we pluck the beam out of 
our own eye. Then we shall have power to spread our 
collective suggestion as a force making for righteousness. 
Here is a chance for American women to be true leaders 
in good as the women of an Italian mob are in evil. 



XVI 
LEADERSHIP IN THE STATE 1 

So he fed them according to the integrity of his heart; and guided them 
by the skilfulness of his hands. Psalm Ixxviii, 72. 

HOW great it must be to pursue a career that justifies 
such a record as this in the annals of history ! 
This leader, King David, both fed and guided his 
people, exhibiting moral integrity — lost once, but re- 
gained — and statesmanlike efficiency. The Psalmist's 
estimate of his leadership indicates the two main quali- 
ties which should always and everywhere characterize 
statesmen and rulers — (1) integrity of moral character; 
and (2) skilfulness or trained ability, and in this order. 
We are to consider leadership in the State this morn- 
ing, and in spite of the difference between ancient and 
modern conditions, we find requirements for those who 
hold high office to be substantially the same now as 
then. The construction of the twentieth-century State 
is not fundamentally different from the theocratic 

1 Preached on Sunday, November 11, 1906, at the Cathedral of S. 
Mary and S. John, Manila. 

200 



LEADERSHIP IN THE STATE 201 

kingdom of which David was monarch, though it may 
be such as to display leadership in a one-sided way. Our 
leaders from the President down are looked upon as the 
representatives of the people — which indeed they are. 
But because another aspect of their character is ob- 
scured it does not alter the fact that that aspect is still 
theirs as an unused or only partially used dynamic. 
Though our rulers by their mode of appointment are 
manifestly the representatives of the people, they are 
none the less the representatives of God if they have 
come to their office by legitimate and honorable means. 
At first sight it looks as though Saul and David were 
God-appointed, and our President and his cabinet man- 
appointed. But this is only a deceptive appearance 
unwarranted by fact. The instrument through which 
Saul or David became God's appointee and representa- 
tive was a man, a prophet. It is fitting and only what we 
should expect that, under the Christian order where all 
the Lord's people are prophets, God should designate 
his appointee through many men, the democracy. 

Man's hand is none the less the agent of achievement 
because machinery is its auxiliary and means of accom- 
plishment. Democracy has grown proud in its power, 
and until a moment ago thought that it was mighty to 
make and unmake its rulers, who were to be and act 
only as its representatives. But the thoughtful man 



202 LEADERSHIP IN THE STATE 

to-day sees the very foundations of society uneasy and 
insecure, not because our rulers deem themselves to be 
representatives of the populace, but because they stop 
at that. The only thing that will save us is the recovery 
into our practical politics of the unalterable principle 
that a ruler, whatever his mode of selection, is the repre- 
sentative of God to the people in the sphere of the State. 
The divine right of kings is untrue only so far as it 
excludes the correlative divine right of the people. The 
President to-day is as truly God's appointee as was 
David. Because a ruler is the representative of man, 
this does not militate against — rather does it supple- 
ment — his character as representative of God. It is this 
that the American people must press upon those who 
are placed in office by their vote. The permanence and 
health of the Republic depend upon its acceptance and 
recognition by ruler and ruled alike. 

The priestly idea runs through the whole of life, and 
no Christian at any rate, can escape from it — least of 
all the statesman. In his sphere and for the purpose of 
his office, the leader in the State is as really God's 
ambassador charged with the execution of His will as 
the prophet or the priest. Let the thought come home to 
a man and he will find himself at once under the spell of 
vocation. Have you ever, even for a moment, through 
a flash of inner conviction, felt yourself God's appointee 



LEADERSHIP IN THE STATE 203 

for a given task? If you have, you know its inspiring 
force, a force which should not be occasional, for it was 
designed by God for common use in every-day life. It 
lifts its happy victim into the higher reaches of self- 
respect, and thence into that restless passion for in- 
tegrity or righteousness that never slumbers nor pauses 
in its quest. A sense of vocation can be distinguished 
from fatalism as easily as Christ can be distinguished 
from Mahomet. 

A statesman with a sense of Divine vocation cannot 
fail to place integrity behind and beneath skill as its 
background and support. He will never be content to 
inscribe on his banner the laissez-faire doctrine of "Let 
well enough alone. " To him the "better is the enemy of 
the good," the best, the enemy of the better. 

Integrity must take first place in leadership, for a 
leader feeds before he leads. Only the fed have strength 
to follow. Integrity alone feeds human life. Skill in- 
terests, amuses, disciplines, perplexes, guides. 

The value of integrity as a qualification for leadership 
is brought out in startling relief by the recent words of 
Dr. Nitobe, Professor of Political Economy in Kyoto 
Imperial University: "Up till recently Japan has been 
what the Germans call a Rechtstaat, a legally organized 
state, a skeleton with little or no moral flesh on it. And 
it is to Christianity that we must look to give us the 



204 LEADERSHIP IN THE STATE 

moral flesh. It is as a state, and not as a society that 
we have made changes and progress, and now the time 
has come to make changes in society. This is dependent 
on the personal character of those in places of leadership 
and authority, and personal character is best improved 
or changed by Christianity. That people in general 
believe that Christianity is the best former of character 
is evidenced by the fact so many of the characters in 
popular Japanese novels and dramas are Christian." 
Thus it is that a Japanese calls us back to Christian 
integrity as the highest quality of leadership. 

A true leader's "personal character is indissolubly 
linked to the events the course of which" he helps to 
determine. Upon his integrity depends his ability to 
select as his assistants men of integrity, or to create 
integrity in others. It is only like that discerns like, 
only like that appeals to like, only like that kindles like. 
Moral earnestness never yet failed in a worthy following. 

Skill is integrity's efficient hand-maid — or else ambi- 
tion's dangerous weapon. A short time since, an Eng- 
lish statesman died of whom history writes that his 
moral earnestness and integrity were greater than his 
qualities as statesman and orator. The judgment of 
to-day will not be altered by our successors a hundred 
years hence. Just a century ago, on the other hand, a 
great orator, one who aspired to be a leader, died. Under 



LEADERSHIP IN THE STATE 205 

the magic of his genius, Wordsworth, plunged in grief, 
wrote of Charles James Fox as he lay dying: 

And many thousands now are sad: — 
Wait the fulfilment of their fear; 
For he must die who is their stay. 
Their glory disappear. 

But listen to the melancholy verdict of to-day on this 
man whose skill had not the life-long support of in- 
tegrity: "We have no desire to condemn Fox because 
of the excesses of his life, and we are aware that profli- 
gates have by no means always been incapable of 
making sacrifices for high causes. In Fox's case, how- 
ever, the unbridled indulgence of his passions had 
"hardened all within and petrified the feeling to such 
an extent that he had become incapable of great actions, 
though, we admit, not of great speeches. When it was 
proposed to Cromwell that Charles II should marry his 
daughter, and as his successor unite the warring ele- 
ments in the State, Cromwell cut short the proposal 
with the remark: 'He is so damnably debauched that 
he would undo us all."' 

God forbid that I should strive to exclude a penitent 
with trained ability from high office; but my influence 
will ever be the assailant of an impenitent, however 
skilled, who asks for the confidence of my fellow-citi- 
zens. If a man has offended publicly and sinned as with 



206 LEADERSHIP IN THE STATE 

a cart rope his penitence must be as public and as in- 
tense as his sin, before he has any right to ask a common- 
wealth for the position of guardian of public morals. 

This principle must hold good wherever and by whom- 
soever appointments are made — whether by the people 
or the President — viz., that political advantages or the 
transcendent skill of the person concerned may never 
be pleaded as a reason for ignoring grave moral defects 
in an aspirant to office; a single instance of this — and I 
should be a coward if I failed to say that there are 
evidences in appointments made in Washington to-day 
that political expediency is sometimes allowed to out- 
weigh serious offences — should not pass without rebuke, 
for it strikes at the very root of democracy. Nor is 
it mere innocuousness or blamelessness that we must 
require of our leaders, but aggressive righteousness. 
The blamelessness of innocence is for childhood; man- 
hood's goodness must wear a more fiery garb. It is 
insufficient that a leader express his moral feeling solely 
in connection with his formal work. The professional 
statesman is as objectionable as the professional clergy- 
man. From the throne of officialdom, manhood, in- 
tegrity, righteousness have a chance to seize upon and 
shape those spasms of popular enthusiasm for the 
betterment of society which are hardly ever wanting. 

"But," you ask, "why spend all this time on the 



LEADERSHIP IN THE STATE 207 

qualifications of a leader? We whom you address are 
not at the head of the State." No, but you choose who 
shall be; and your expectations temper the course of 
your leaders when they have been elected. If we have a 
low conception of their duty, we shall probably get 
from them a low degree of achievement. Why did the 
country from end to end ring with the praises of the 
Senate a while since? It was because we have allowed 
ourselves to be satisfied with a low standard from them, 
and when they did part of their duty we lauded them 
as if they had done us a special favor, though they were 
shamefully delinquent in other respects. It is a compli- 
ment to require much of our leaders. To look to them as 
active and conscious promoters of righteousness is only 
what we owe them and ourselves. Having invited them 
to assume office, we indicate the full breadth of their 
opportunity by exacting high things of them. To say, 
as I did a short time since, that a great opportunity 
for moral leadership — an opportunity which is rapidly 
dying, and will soon be dead — was open in these Is- 
lands to those who hold in their hands the reins of 
authority, was and is the highest expression of confi- 
dence and expectation that could be offered official life. 
Leaders will be pretty much what we expect them to be. 
When we steadily look for moral leadership in our State 
authorities we shall get it. Just because moral authority 



£08 LEADERSHIP IN THE STATE 

has ceased to be centralized in the clergy, the duty of 
everyone to exercise it who occupies the vantage ground 
of position is doubled. 

Public acts call for public comment and discussion. 
Criticism is the fruit of discussion. But criticism is not 
peevish complaining under the breath. It is frank and 
open, aiming to reach the ears of those who are being 
tried in the balances. The nation is a large family and, 
however careful diplomats must be in handling the 
affairs of other nations, the almost brutal frankness of 
the family, a frankness that is one of its finest disciplines, 
should characterize the course of citizenship. It is not 
that we have too much criticism, but it is that it is 
random and is uttered in too low a tone. You who are 
in touch with social life here know what the topic of the 
moment is. Remember that our duty is not to talk 
sotto-voce but in such tones as shall reach the Capitol. 
The question is not whether our judgment is just 
or unjust, true or untrue: it is sincere and well-nigh 
unanimous, and its worth must be decided by those 
who are the objects of our criticism. 

It is the weak who get angry and resentful of criti- 
cism thereby incapacitating themselves to determine 
whether the criticism is just or unjust. The strong man, 
if he does not court criticism like Darwin, or the French 
philosopher who considered his work at a standstill 



LEADERSHIP IN THE STATE 209 

because there was a pause in contradiction, at any rate 
weighs it carefully, accepting and using what is just, 
and when it is not just suffering fools gladly. Gladstone 
lived for more than sixty years in the public eye, and as a 
party leader was exposed to angry and sometimes spite- 
ful criticism, but there stands on record against him 
"no malignant word and no vindictive act. This was 
due not perhaps entirely to natural sweetness of dis- 
position, but rather to self-control and to a certain 
largeness of soul which would not condescend to any- 
thing mean or petty." A wise leader who has integrity 
of heart recognizes that his ideals and convictions be- 
come really his own only so far as they have been tried 
in every furnace and come out, perhaps not unscathed, 
but at least refined and purified. 

Seldom has a man seen with clearer eye the depths as 
well as the heights of leadership than Fessenden when 
in Reconstruction days he made the Senate chamber 
echo to these memorable words: "When, Mr. President, 
a man, however eminent in other pursuits, and what- 
ever claims he may have to public confidence, becomes 
a member of this body, he has much to learn and much 
to endure. Little does he know of what he will have to 
encounter. He may be well read in public affairs, but 
he is unaware of the difficulties which must attend and 
embarrass every effort to render what he may know 
14 



210 LEADERSHIP IN THE STATE 

available and useful. He may be upright in purpose and 
strong in the belief of his own integrity, but he cannot 
even dream of the ordeal to which he cannot fail to be 
exposed; of how much courage he must possess to resist 
the temptations which must daily beset him; of that 
sensitive shrinking from undeserved censure which he 
must learn to control; of the ever recurring contest 
between a natural desire for public approbation and 
a sense of public duty; of the load of injustice he must 
be content to bear even from those who should be his 
friends; the imputations on his motives; the sneers and 
sarcasms of ignorance and malice; all the manifold 
injuries which partisan or private malignity, disap- 
pointed of its object, may shower upon his unpro- 
tected head. All this, if he would retain his integrity, 
he must learn to bear unmoved and walk steadily on- 
ward in the path of public duty, sustained only by the 
reflection that time may do him justice; or if not, that 
his individual hopes and aspirations and even his name 
among men should be of little account to him when 
weighed in the balance of a people of whose destiny he 
is a constituted guardian and defender." 

Let me close with two brief reflections. 

1 . The nation holds a high place in God's scheme for 
humanity here and hereafter. It is worth making 
sacrifices for. Just because God reckons with it as with 



LEADERSHIP IN THE STATE 211 

His own handiwork, integrity not less than skill should 
shine like jewels upon the brow of statesmen and leaders. 
2. It is the peculiar function of democracy to create 
great leaders. These leaders will be increasingly great 
as the democracy from which they spring is progres- 
sively high-minded and sensitive to the moral law. We 
have had great leaders in the past, and we shall have 
them again in the future. But we are the democracy 
and we must mend its quality not only by asking that it 
may be strengthened from above, but also by ourselves 
strengthening it below "with our hope and our anger 
and our youth." Though every man should be scanning 
the horizon for a leader, " every man ought to be waiting 
for a chance to lead. If a god does come upon the earth, 
he will descend at the sight of the brave. . . . The great 
man will come when all of us are feeling great, not when 
all of us are feeling small. He will ride in at some splen- 
did moment when we all feel that we could do without 
him." And he will feed us according to the integrity of 
his heart, and guide us by the skilfulness of his hands. 



XVII 
THE MISUNDERSTOOD 1 

In the midst of you standeth one whom ye know not. John i, 26. 

A T first sight it seems absurd to say that we do not 
^~^- know the people with whom we rub shoulders 
daily. We certainly act as though we did. Our judg- 
ment of character is usually swift and smug. 

Unfortunately experience teaches us that physical 
and social propinquity by no means connotes mutual 
understanding. As a matter of fact frequently those 
who are our nearest and should be our dearest are least 
known and most misunderstood. This horrid contradic- 
tion is so common as to give rise to such proverbial 
sayings as "Familiarity breeds contempt," and, "A 
prophet is not without honor save in his own country 
and his own house.' ' 

It takes some extraordinary crisis or happening to 
light up a nearby character so that we can honestly say 
we know it. Death is a torch showing the living the 

1 Preached at the American Cathedral, Manila, on Sunday, 22d of 
December, 1912. 

212 



THE MISUNDERSTOOD 213 

true value of the man who has died. The greatest men 
have been accounted a scourge and nuisance by their 
beneficiaries and have been swept out of time by the 
hemlock cup or the sword or the cross at the hand of 
those whose children, decades later, are destined to pay 
them the honor which was due during their life time. 

The heights and depths of human nature are vast. 
As we see it ourselves it transcends our ability to know 
it. Self-deceit is a rampant defect, and the gulf between 
what we are and what we flatter ourselves into thinking 
we are may be, and usually is, as profound as the Nero 
Deep. If I was looking for an approximate measure of 
myself from outside, I would strike a mean between the 
verdict of an intelligent friend and an intelligent enemy. 

The ordinary man is too near himself and his com- 
rades to read values clearly. That which distinguishes 
great leadership is developed ability to know men and 
to read their powers. A person may be talented in many 
other respects but he cannot be a big statesman or a 
powerful administrator unless he is a discerner of 
spirits. 

The distinction between our Lord's choicest com- 
panions and Himself was that He knew them through 
and through, whereas they were ignorant both of them- 
selves and, except at moments and in spots, of Him. 
"He knew all men." "He needed not that anyone 



214 THE MISUNDERSTOOD 

should bear witness concerning man: for He Himself 
knew what was in man." Even S. John Baptist had to 
admit that, forerunner as he was, "he knew Him not," 
until knowledge was forced into him by revelation. So 
it is with all of us — we cannot know anyone, big or 
small, without revelation. Psychology by itself is a 
cul-de-sac. 

The completeness of our Lord's knowledge of men 
begins in His ability to ascribe true value to the least. 
It is not extraordinary to be able to see and admire the 
great proportions of a mountain, but it takes gifts to 
discern the significance of Wordsworth's cowslip by the 
river's brim, or Tennyson's flower in the crannied wall. 
The Lord first saw the true value of the little child and 
of the outcast, which was rather trying to His self-im- 
portant comrades. And most great men have accen- 
tuated their greatness by their recognition of the least, 
as when Lincoln stopped his labor on the affairs of state 
to inquire the cause of a baby's tears, and worried grim 
generals by habitually pardoning deserters. 

We are beginning to realize that we do not know much 
about children. Froebel, a while since, made us sit up 
and think, and now Montessori proposes revolutionary 
methods of training. 

Well do I recall one of the earlier meetings of the 
Prison Congress with ex-President Hayes and Phillips 



THE MISUNDERSTOOD 215 

Brooks as its towering figures. The advanced thought 
on penology which first found utterance on that occasion 
would sound old-fashioned indeed among the men of 
our day who maintain that the difference between 
criminals and other people is that the former are behind 
bars and the latter are not. 

Again, where wise men were once ready to give in 
flowing speech an accurate description of the processes 
of thought and interior life of foreign peoples, we are 
now hesitant and apologetic when international prob- 
lems compel us to the study of Oriental or African. Do 
you and I think we know the Filipino? We are well 
aware of his misunderstanding of us and his misinter- 
pretations of our life, and we are pretty well convinced 
that we have at any rate about as incomplete a knowl- 
edge of him and his customs. 

The least man demands our strictest attention and 
largest sympathy whether he be a pagan of the Luzon 
hills or a Moro of the fertile valleys of the South. Just 
now our minds are constrained to consider with 
unwonted earnestness the whole Moro problem. A 
tragedy of exceeding bitterness has devastated and 
outraged our American community. 1 The quick justice 
meted out to the criminal does not satisfy the demands 

1 The death of Captain Watson and the wounding of Lieutenant 
Edmunds at the hands of a juramentado. 



216 THE MISUNDERSTOOD 

of the situation. It is not to the discredit of the brave 
and wise men who from the first have grappled with 
the problem that we should be obliged to admit that it 
remains still an unsolved problem. Tragedy has marked 
the course of our work among the Moros. Tragedy may 
be and often is a necessary part of justice and progress. 
Nature herself is red with ravin tooth and claw. But 
tragedy is never less than tragedy in that it is always 
violence. We know well how our own hearts ache over 
the brave young lives of men, in whose veins runs our 
own blood, laid low by treacherous Kris. But let us be 
fair and think of the oceans of tears that have been 
caused by our arms among those our fellow humans in 
the South, and let us show our true greatness by a 
restudy of the whole matter, least though possibly the 
Moro be. I speak as a student rather than a critic. I 
speak as one who has traversed a considerable part of 
the Moro Province, and who, amid many discourage- 
ments and with meagre facilities, has had a great 
longing to do something for the Moro to emancipate 
him from his semi-savagery and mad fanaticism. 

Consider first the magnitude of our opportunity. 
Here in the Moro Province is the only spot under the 
American flag where we are confronted with Islam. 
Would it not be worth while to make some real con- 
tribution toward the solution of this world problem 



THE MISUNDERSTOOD 217 

which lingers in Europe as a plague spot and threatens 
the peace, not to say the integrity, of the Indian Em- 
pire? We have it in our power to do so. May it not be 
that we have hitherto been dealing with the question 
too much as a purely local one, whereas it is the whole 
problem of Islamism that confronts and challenges us 
in Mindanao and Jolo. The Mohammedan world is a 
unified and sensitive organism. To touch it here is to 
set it quivering there. A word in Europe to the Turk 
sets the wild Pathan tribes in Asia aflame. 

"Islam tolerates no other religions" — I quote in the 
words of an expert — "God demands their suppression; 
unfortunately the conditions of the age forbid Holy War 
against unbelievers; it is coming however; one must arm 
oneself betimes. That is the sorcerer's business; they go 
up and down the country undertaking to make young 
men invulnerable, to endow the chief's fighting men 
with the power to cross the ocean; they know the magic 
circle which no bullet can penetrate and the charms by 
which the bullets of European ' Satan weapons ' may be 
turned to water; gaping wounds close at their word and 
the dead come to life again. So it will be in the last 
great conflict between the Christian unbelievers and 
dogs of heathen and the Mohammedans. No wonder 
that the naturally easy-going heathen becomes a fanatic 
in such a school. Fanaticism, however, makes him un- 



218 THE MISUNDERSTOOD 

receptive to any religious or civilizing influence on the 
part of the hated Christians, and his fanaticism daily- 
receives fresh fuel. Once the Mohammedan knows how 
to perform his ablutions and the sacred rites with the 
appointed formulae, he becomes possessed by the feeling, 
* I alone am clean among the unclean ! ' When he 
prostrates himself at prayer five times a day, he touches 
the dust with his forehead and murmurs, * Allah is 
great,' and he has a vivid sense that he alone is a be- 
liever among all the unbelievers. Fanaticism is natur- 
ally what the Mohammedan convert acquires first, 
because it needs no scholarship. Whereas he may be 
lacking in knowledge, he can easily equal the Mecca 
pilgrims in the art of rating and cursing the unbeliever. 
Although, unfortunately, he may not be able to wield 
weapons against the all powerful whites, he can mock 
and despise them in his heart. And all this is rendering 
service to God." 1 

Accepting this statement as true, it is obvious that 
repression and severe chastisement cannot go far to 
remedy matters. The only discipline that can cure 
fatalism is that which was meted out to the Mahdi's 
army by Kitchener — annihilation. We are prepared for 
no such policy. What is the significance of the jura- 
mentado ? Is it not actual, though limited, Holy War? 
1 D. Gottfried Simon in The Mohammedan World, vol. ii, No. 4. 



THE MISUNDERSTOOD 219 

Thus far we have done nothing except to sweep the 
doorstep. We must set to work with redoubled efforts 
to enlighten the Moro intelligence as to our aim and 
purpose. "A profound misunderstanding intervenes 
between Christian and Moslem civilization, due to the 
disappointments, the humiliations, and the ruin that the 
policy' of Western ethics brings to the East — and 
nothing which will be firm and lasting can be done to 
improve these relations so long as the obstacle of legiti- 
mate suspicion endures." 1 

If we, with all our culture and discernment, find it 
difficult to read the silent, sullen peoples, how much 
more difficult must it be for a race like the Moros, 
allied to all the worst that is in Islam but with little of 
its civilization or order and none of its redeeming quali- 
ties — how much more difficult, I say, must it be for 
them with their limited outlook and elements of savag- 
ery to understand Western civilization with its heights 
and depths, its disciplines and aggressions, its promises 
and contradictions! No negations, however wise and 
austere, can do anything by themselves to cure the evil. 
Repression will but drive them more deeply into their 
inscrutable selves. A constructive policy has already 
been in operation for years, but do we not need to in- 
crease our emphasis of it, and inaugurate a glowing 
1 Professor Le Chatelier in The Moslem World, vol. ii, No. 4. 



220 THE MISUNDERSTOOD 

campaign of philanthropy and friendliness, before the 
cobwebs of suspicion and the red fanaticism of hatred 
can be banished. It might cost something, more than 
the Moro Province could support, to build a line of 
hospitals and support an adequate corps of doctors and 
nurses throughout the Province. But what a magnifi- 
cent thing it would be to do this ! There are lots of men 
and women who would find in the risk the stimulus that 
makes life worth living and death worth dying. x\nd 
again, how quickly distrust and hatred would be melted 
into kindly feeling, if the able superintendent of schools 
of the Moro Province were given by the American 
Government the facilities and staff he needs to reach 
in some adequate way the thousands of little Moro 
children whose only school to-day is that of supersti- 
tion and fanaticism. I can think of no more effective 
agency for the promotion of friendliness than a carefully 
planned industrial school on a large scale established 
somewhere, at Lake Lanao or in Jolo, where the people 
seem most irreconcilable. The experiment is worthy of 
the American Government and her distinguished re- 
presentatives on the spot. We might fail, but if we 
did it would not be because the ideal does not ring 
true; anyhow failure in such a project would not be 
a disgrace. This is certain. The only real success won 
thus far in the Mohammedan world by Christian 



THE MISUNDERSTOOD 221 

effort has been due to the agencies of hospitals and 
schools. 

I have spoken thus freely because this problem is 
every Christian's responsibility. It is a religious prob- 
lem before it is political. We are far from knowing these 
least of God's children, and until we look at things 
through their eyes conditions will continue awry. It 
will be by coming to know the greatest that we shall 
learn to know the least. " In the midst of you standeth 
one whom ye know not." Christ and Christ's methods 
are the key to the Moro problem. It is rash indeed to 
plunge into any human problem without Christ as 
leader. He is at hand, that is, within easy reach. We 
must come to know Him, the greatest, and in Him 
learn to read the least. Many take Him on hearsay, 
and worship and serve an idea of Him rather than 
Himself. The result is schism. Other some take His 
methods on hearsay rather than study them — they are 
writ large — for themselves. The result is blunders. 

The converse, paradoxical as it may seem, is equally 
true. W 7 e get to know the greatest by getting to know 
the least. Men like Wilberforce and Henry Martyn 
and Livingstone, in their self-regardlessness, and their 
fiery love for slave and Mohammedan and savage, knew 
more of God than the orthodox dilettante full of theol- 
ogy and prayers can ever hope to know. 



222 THE MISUNDERSTOOD 

If we commit our problem to God and bring God to 
our problem, we shall be called foolhardy by some, but 
it is this very foolishness which has proved the one 
powerful thing in history. We shall be called to a 
venture of faith. Like those fearless adventurers of 
whom Columbus is the type we must launch out in the 
frail bark of experiment, and seeking an old land we 
shall find a new. 

"They were dominated by a superior force, impelling 
them across unknown seas to the discovery of the un- 
seen but truly imagined land. It is useless to ask them 
what they seek and whither they go. They only know 
that they are pressing forward, and drawing the world 
after them in their course — nothing more. Nor should 
we wonder at their unconsciousness for it is their essen- 
tial characteristic and merit. They disperse the dark- 
ness, and cleave a passage for the new road, rather by 
the force of will and faith, than by force of reason. 
Theirs is the prophetic mind, the hero's heart, the 
martyr's fate. The world, in fact, is horror-struck by 
this new race of Titans springing to the overthrow of old 
idols and soon seeks to crush them; but before long 
begins to worship their traces and follow in their 
steps." 1 

The problem is a challenge and an opportunity. 

1 Villari's Savonarola. 



XVIII 
THE WEAK FOR THE STRONG x 

Now we that are strong ought to bear the infirmities of the weak, and not to 
please ourselves. Rom. xv, 1. 

THE writer of these words had that faculty of getting 
at the heart of things which all of us covet but 
few of us possess. Even in dealing with matters of 
comparative indifference he appeals to a principle so 
profound as to form the basis of all Christian life and 
action. It is not my purpose to discuss the question 
which called forth his words, but rather to consider the 
principle itself in its broadest aspects. It is this — that 
all strength, physical, intellectual, moral, and spiritual is 
for use in the haunts of weakness for the purpose of 
dissipating infirmity of whatever sort. Strength is not a 
luxury but a force, not a toy for self -pleasing, but an 
instrument for effective use. So far as men surrender 
themselves unreservedly to the control of this principle 

1 Preached at the Church of Great S. Mary, Cambridge, on February 
16, 1908. 

223 



224 THE WEAK FOR THE STRONG 

they contribute to the advancement of God's Kingdom 
among men; so far as they are shy of it they impede 
its progress. Life to-day is suffering from a twofold 
disease — congestion on the one hand and impoverish- 
ment on the other. Congestion is due to the focussing of 
strength and separating it from weakness, thus leaving 
the weak to huddle together in a condition of impover- 
ishment. The cure consists in congestion laying its 
form on impoverishment, eye to eye, lip to lip, as the 
prophet laid his body instinct with life upon the body of 
the dead boy. 

"We who are strong." Mark the tone of the speaker, 
its conviction, its exultation. He knows he is strong, 
this man of mean presence and uneloquent lips. It is no 
mark of humility to pretend that we have not that 
which we know we have. Humility does not allow of 
the self-complacent contemplation of one's own ability 
though it requires honest admission of obvious and 
undeniable fact. So S. Paul admits his strength and 
groups himself with the strong. I have tried to think of 
him as he must have looked when he uttered such words 
as these. Weak though he was in bodily presence the 
inner fire must have shone through the window of his 
countenance. I was looking last week at the painting of 
Archbishop Temple that hangs on the walls of Lambeth 
Palace. His portrait seems to be the emblem of the 



THE WEAK FOR THE STRONG 225 

strength with which England is endowed. He looks like 
a towering rock that has been beaten by the hostile 
waves in vain, each new assault but adding to his power; 
or like a mountain peak combed clean by the teeth of a 
gale — better still like strength that has seen the vision 
of weakness and is hastening to its rescue. S. Paul must 
have had some such look in his face when he heard the 
appeal of weakness beating at the door of his strength. 
He does not think it a cold duty to use his strength in 
behalf of the weak, but a joy — the joy of fitness. 

Strength for practical purposes exists only when it is 
in operation. It only becomes ours when we use it to 
make it the property of others. We cannot place it 
apart from personality, and analyze it as we would a 
specimen under a microscope. The use of strength for 
self -pleasing is not use; it is abuse. It is like a machine 
operating for its own consumption, using up again that 
which it produces. It is employing an instrument as a 
toy. In the house of a savage chief, far remote from 
civilization, I saw hanging on the wall a common garden 
rake with the shop paint untarnished. In his ignorance 
this wild man was using as a decoration that which was 
intended for an aid to cultivation. We smile. But after 
all it was no more ridiculous than our own behavior is. 
Our so-called civilization is cluttered up with privilege 
and culture lying about in wasteful and idle profusion, 
is 



226 THE WEAK FOR THE STRONG 

God-given instruments used as ornaments or toys. 
Endowments represent not merely responsibility, but 
aids to efficiency, the enlargement of ability to help 
others. Privilege and culture should not separate us 
from the multitude; they should drive us into the heart 
of the suffering crowd. Culture should increase our 
sensitiveness and sympathy to such a degree as to make 
us peculiarly quick to discern the needs of the weak; 
privilege should place in our hands effective instru- 
ments wherewith to solve the problems discovered by 
culture's keen eyes. The expert use of privilege is 
perhaps our chief est need just now. Socialism has the 
right impulse but the wrong method. It tries to make 
life a dead level by a system. Christianity on the other 
hand endeavors by a gospel of brotherhood to place the 
strong in such relation to the weak as to make life as 
though it were even. It has no system by which it 
accomplishes a final solution, no scheme that will do the 
thing up once and for all. It is an endless output of the 
best wisdom from day to day. Practical schemes are 
used but not relied upon. The gospel of science is 
system; the gospel of philanthropy is contribution; the 
gospel of Christianity is sharing. 

I am convinced too that the only tenable conception 
of Christian practice is what has been called the "Prodi- 
gal Son Conception " — that is to say that our sharing 



THE WEAK FOR THE STRONG 227 

must reach to the depths, even to those whom society 
dismisses as worthless. For them, the outcast of the 
slums and the weak tribes of the hills, as well as for the 
man of manifest though undeveloped capacity and 
the populous nations, the motto is "optimum vix 
satis" 

It is better to abandon privilege than to let it lie idle 
or only half use it. One day a young man of such fine 
qualities came into the presence of our Lord that He 
loved him at sight. He was as we would say a man of 
character. But the Master bade him sell all that he had 
and give to the poor. Why? Do you think that if that 
young man had been using his strength in behalf of the 
weak any such injunction would have been laid on him? 
I believe not. The penetrating eye of the Master saw 
that he was not strong enough to do that most difficult 
thing, which makes it passing hard for those who have 
riches to enter into the Kingdom of God — viz., to use 
them effectively as a trust in behalf of the whole social 
body, and He bade him surrender them at once and 
completely. There is the alternative for all time, — 
privilege must be used or relinquished. I believe that it 
is an easier and in many instances a less heroic thing to 
relinquish than to use. Hence our Lord's words, "how 
hardly shall they that have riches enter into the King- 
dom of Heaven, " not a condemnation but a challenge, 



228 THE WEAK FOR THE STRONG 

not a discouragement but a trumpet call cheering the 
privileged up to the heights of their opportunity. 

It is incumbent upon us who belong to richly privi- 
leged and blessed nations to say exultantly, "we 
are strong." Then immediately our consciousness is 
charged with the injunction to use our composite, 
national strength in behalf of the nations and peoples 
who are weak. The nation that thinks only of self- 
aggrandizement is an impediment to world progress. 
The American people were very much tempted to mere 
self-applause until in the providential ruling we found 
ourselves with heavy responsibilities far afield. Our 
Pharisaic spirit moved us to thank God that we were 
not as other nations. But from the moment that we 
faced the problem of administering Philippine affairs the 
leaders of the American Republic determined that our 
policy should be one of constructive beneficence, aim- 
ing at the building up of the Filipinos and encouraging 
their capacity to rise to its fullest degree of development. 
This course has been consistently pursued in spite of the 
hindrances of selfish politicians. Exploitation of the 
Filipinos has been discouraged and unselfish projects 
put into effect. The native interests have always been 
given not merely a prominent, but the first, place. 

The situation is unique. The population consists of 
upwards of 7,500,000 people of Malay stock, of whom 



THE WEAK FOR THE STRONG 

all excepting less than one seventh have been more or 
less brought under the influence of Christianity. From 
1521 until the end of the last century they were under 
the tutelage of Spain. To the Spanish friars they owe 
all that they are. When Magallanes discovered the 
Islands Mohammedanism was sweeping northward with 
its compelling power and had already reached Manila. 
But the Cross conquered the Crescent and a people 
naturally pious were wrested from the fanaticism of 
Islam — a truly unprecedented achievement. 

The rule of the friars came to a close with the end of 
the Spanish and the beginning of the American sover- 
eignty. Nor shall we throw stones on their graves even 
though their latter days were not free from shame. 
They performed a good work and disappeared as being 
out of date. They were valuable in their time just as 
the feudal system was good in its time. But the old 
order has passed away and a new epoch has been ushered 
in. 

Through the work of the friars a whole Oriental 
population was Christianized. It has no parallel in 
history. Its most obvious result is that it groups a 
Malay people with Christianized nations so that they 
naturally look to Europe and America rather than to 
the Asiatics with whom they would seem to have closer 
affiliations by virtue of propinquity and racial origin. 



230 THE WEAK FOR THE STRONG 

They resist vigorously the faintest suggestion of 
Japanese domination, and while it is not uncommon for 
Chinese (of whom there are about 45,000 in the Islands) 
to marry Filipinas, they heartily approve of and enforce 
the Chinese Exclusion Act. If a Chinese marries a 
Filipina, he must first be baptized. 

Because of the Christianity of the Filipinos we have 
reason to believe that in time constitutional govern- 
ment and democratic principles may prevail among 
them. Republicanism, and indeed all government as 
the Western mind understands the word, I think I am 
right in this generalization, have taken root only where 
Christianity has paved the way. Democracy is an 
application of the Christian priniciple of brotherhood to 
the science of government. America's work is to educate 
the Filipinos in the responsibility of self-government 
with the aim and expectation of turning merely racial 
into national self -consciousness as time goes on. We 
look for no gain to ourselves except the gain that comes 
from strength spending itself in behalf of weakness. 

With American sovereignty has been introduced the 
ideal so dear to American life of a free Christianity in a 
free state. We Americans feel that Christianity has 
its highest moral and spiritual opportunity when it is 
thrown on its own merits, and the prestige that belongs 
solely to its past history and its present character. So 



THE WEAK FOR THE STRONG 231 

we believe we are adding strength and not weakness to 
Philippine life when we open the door to every phase of 
Christian belief that cares to establish itself among the 
Filipinos. Of course it means a revolution in native 
thought. Hitherto there had been uniformity, uni- 
formity which, according to its wont, had become 
diseased. No form of Christianity but Latin was toler- 
ated or allowed. Now various missionary agencies are 
actively at work. The effect has been to rouse the 
venerable Church which had grown moss-covered during 
its more than three centuries of undisputed rule, to 
new moral and spiritual vigor. It is significant that the 
free Christianity of America is conspicuous for mission- 
ary spirit. The Orient is well served by American 
denominations as, e. g. the work of the Congregationalists 
in the Turkish Empire, of the Presbyterians in India, 
of the Methodists in the Strait Settlements and Feder- 
ated Malay States, of the Baptists in Burma, and of our 
own Church in China and Japan — to go no further — 
amply attests. 

Nor, as I am convinced, is there need of ecclesiastical 
war where there are various Christian Churches laboring 
side by side. Not that I advocate toleration as the word 
is usually understood. I do not believe in toleration 
with its condescending spirit — except perhaps the 
toleration which S. Paul commends when he advises us 



THE WEAK FOR THE STRONG 

to suffer fools gladly. There is something bigger and 
finer than toleration. I mean magnanimity, that Chris- 
tian virtue that does not carp at what it cannot under- 
stand or fails to agree with; that avoids controversy 
except as a last resort, and when it is forced to it 
conducts it on the highest plane; that deprecates 
proselytism and scorns to build up its walls with mate- 
rials torn out of a neighbor's building; that looks for 
evidences of God's Spirit wherever Christ is sincerely 
preached. At any rate it is with this ideal that our 
Church has entered into Philippine life. 

The task we have in hand is not a local one, it is a 
fragment of the task that falls upon the shoulders of 
every strong nation — the task of ministering out of the 
abundance of Western privilege to the whole of the vast 
Orient. We who have Christ are strong and we must go 
to those who having Him not, are weak, whatever their 
wealth may be. All great national questions during the 
next hundred years will centre in the Orient. The home 
land will not suffer impoverishment by giving lavishly 
of her choicest sons. They are the very men who ought 
to rejoice to go just because they are strong and 
strength's unalterable commission is to go to the weak. 
The East is calling some of you, and you must respond 
as becomes men who, knowing that they can live this 
life but once, are bent on high adventure. You must 



THE WEAK FOR THE STRONG 233 

go with that beautiful combination of sympathy and 
tenderness and strength which will study to understand 
the oriental character. The old theory was that there is 
a gulf separating East and West. The new and the true 
is that all that separates is incidental and all that unites 
is fundamental. We must search for the essential 
and build upon it out of the abundance of our wealth. 

" East is East and West is West 
And never the twain shall meet 
Till Earth and Sky stand presently 
At God's great judgment seat. 
But there is neither East nor West 
Border nor breed nor birth 
When two strong men stand face to face 
Though they come from the ends of the earth" 



XIX 

THE NATION FOR THE NATIONS 1 

We who are strong ought to bear the burdens of the weak, and not to please 
ourselves. Rom. xv, 1. 

NO one can hear such words as these without both a 
sense of shame and a sense of stimulation. For 
we know that we are strong, and while we are stirred to a 
proper use of strength we cannot but recall how fre- 
quently we have used it amiss. These words are of deep 
concern to us, for they indicate the right and the wrong 
way of using strength. Strength is a force, not a luxury 
— an instrument, not a toy. It is our boast nationally, to 
whatever Western race we belong, that we are a privi- 
leged people. Individually we would count it an insult 
if we were set down as weaklings. Nor is it any lack of 
modesty to proclaim ourselves strong, unless we do it 
for the sake of attracting admiration and centring the 
eyes of others upon ourselves. We are strong, and let us 
proclaim it abroad, but let our proclamation be to the 
weak, as a herald announces to a beleaguered city that 

x Preached at Trinity Cathedral, Shanghai, February 7, 1909. 

234 



NATION FOR THE NATIONS 235 

help is at hand; as a doctor cheers a sufferer by declaring 
his beneficent purpose of healing. Yes, — let us proclaim 
our strength, Christian, national and individual, as not 
being a possession wherewith to please ourselves but to 
help the less favored. 

Some of us are not conscious of our strength, because 
strength expresses itself only in that kind of usage which 
benefits the weak and we are not thus using it. Others 
again are unconscious of their strength because they are 
dissipating their force indiscriminately. Though we 
must use our privilege, whatever it may be, in behalf of 
the unprivileged, we must do so with judgment. The 
day of indiscriminate favors is over, for we have found 
out that there is deep philosophy in the words of Christ 
which warn us against casting pearls before swine. 
But the truth none the less holds good that our privilege 
is for use and not for ornament. The world to-day is 
suffering from two diseases — congestion on the one 
hand and impoverishment on the other. The former is 
due to the fact that the strong combine together, and the 
latter to the fact that the weak are driven into a fatal 
inbreeding that always intensifies weakness. The task 
of the hour is to bring congestion over against im- 
poverishment, nationally and internationally, that the 
twofold disease may disappear. Congestion is just as 
grave an evil as impoverishment. Extremes meet and 



236 THE NATION 

the tinsel-decked body of congestion is just as grossly 
materialistic as the squalid features of impoverishment. 

Let us consider some aspects of the strength with 
which we are endowed. We naturally think first of 
what is called civilization, but civilization considered 
merely as material progress is at best an ephemeral 
thing and bound to disappear. If we give ourselves time 
to think we realize that our boasted civilization of the 
West, considered as a purely material thing, is suscep- 
tible to decay as certainly as the great civilizations of 
ancient days. What remains of the wonderful material 
development of Egypt? Nothing but a few broken 
columns and some splashes of paint on the walls of 
sand-buried tombs. 

It is claimed, and with justice, that our civilization 
differs from that which has gone before in that it is the 
product of Eternal forces . Its foundation is not material- 
istic but spiritual. It is built upon a peculiar Religion 
and is dependent for its continuance upon a social 
structure, that is a direct product of that Religion. 
Christianity is the mother of the civilization of which 
we are a part. Sceptics may decry faith as a theological 
virtue too transcendent for men of action, but it none 
the less remains a fact that the whole fabric of society is 
dependent for its existence upon it. Faith in the unseen 
has bred faith in the seen. Men believe in one another 



FOR THE NATIONS 237 

because men believe in God, and that belief, which we 
call faith, is a cord more delicate than a spider's web 
and stronger than a cable of steel. Faith binds the 
civilized world together in that measure of unity which 
has been achieved, and it is faith in character created 
by Christianity. The most practical product of Chris- 
tianity is moral integrity. Any failure to trust the moral 
integrity of the stewards of society culminates in disaster. 
A year ago in America, because a little wave of distrust 
appeared on the surface of life, there came about such a 
dislocation in finance as to cause national disaster, and 
before that distrust had spent itself the entire world 
felt the effect. Our system of credit is built upon faith — 
faith in moral integrity. I have been told by a great 
financier that our cash transactions are a tiny percent- 
age of our business negotiations, so that whenever faith 
gives place to distrust the entire structure of society is 
threatened. 

We see then, that civilization is dependent for its 
very existence upon character, and I will go further and 
affirm that character, as we believe in it, is dependent 
upon Christianity. It has been suggested that morality 
would survive even if revealed religion should decline. 
I am deeply convinced that such could not be the case. 
A river cut off from its source may run for a while and 
trickle for a considerable period longer, but eventually 



238 THE NATION 

it will disappear entirely. If morality should survive 
religion for a period it would only bear testimony to the 
fact that Christianity had done its work so well that its 
results would continue to struggle for an existence. 

Progress without a morality-producing religion is 
fatal to the individual and the nation. In the Constitu- 
tion Congress last August "to consider the political 
constitutions of the French Republic, the United King- 
dom and the United States, with special reference to the 
safeguards they provide for maintaining personal liberty 
and responsibility," it was brought out clearly that the 
"instrument, be it never so cunningly devised, is of 
small moment compared with the forces that operate it. 
These may vary somewhat in accordance with national 
characteristics, but the relationship of the governors and 
the governed is really a problem of society and not of 
nations. " This view was affirmed by Mr. Gibson Bowles 
who remarked in the course of his address on ancient 
principles and modern practice of the British Constitu- 
tion, that the first safeguard of all is the character of 
the ministers, members, and people. At last the working 
of the constitution depends upon the characters and 
support of every individual who exercises under it any 
power. 

The characteristic prefix of our day is "inter." Inter- 
nationalism stands as the practical expression of a 



FOR THE NATIONS 239 

mutual service among nations, each giving to each, the 
strong bearing the burdens of the weak. And the re- 
sponsibility and inspiring opportunity is upon the 
shoulders of those great nations of the West of which 
you and I are citizens. So too in religion. Inter-denomi- 
nationalism is a step toward unity. Do not misunder- 
stand me. I am not supporting that menace to religion, 
undenominationalism any more than I would support 
un-nationalism, were there such a thing. International- 
ism and interdenominationalism on the other hand stand 
alike for magnanimity based on conviction, and bear 
the marks of strength, not weakness. 

Our desire is to give the Orient civilization. We who 
are living in the Far East, if we are justified in being 
here, are using our strength not merely to get a living, 
but to minister to the people among whom we live out 
of the wealth of our privilege. Overt exploitation of 
foreign nations, especially the weak and ignorant, is no 
longer a possibility, though none of us can think without 
a blush of shame of the way we took advantage of the 
peoples of the East to enrich ourselves in past days. 
God defend us from the re-introduction of such days. 
Now nation must live for nation, the strong for the 
weak. 

There is no more splendid spectacle in history than 
England aiding Egypt. That great man Earl Cromer is 



240 THE NATION 

a model for all men who live abroad. For twenty-five 
years he gave his splendid powers for one end — out 
of his nation's strength to minister to the Egyptian 
weakness. 

Or again, look at India where the effort is being 
steadily made, criticize as we may the policy in force, 
to give to the dark-skinned peoples that which is con- 
ducive to their well-being. And I am proud myself to 
be in the thick of the fight in America's first colonial 
experiment in which our motive is noble even though 
our mode of expression is faulty. 

But let us not make a mistake. Let us not allow 
civilization and wealth to run ahead of character. All 
material advance demands a commensurate advance 
in moral development. Do not make the mistake of 
supposing that by bestowing material prosperity you 
are giving a blessing. Prosperity without character is a 
deadly curse. To-day the children of the prosperous 
are frequently moral failures because indulgent parents 
put material safeguards around them so as to rob them 
of robustness, instead of flinging them bravely out into 
that wholesome hardness and moral discipline that 
creates stamina and strength. 

Let us go to the source of our civilization and make it 
our first gift to the East. The religion of Jesus Christ is 
a necessity before what we understand as civilization 



FOR THE NATIONS 241 

can hold together. The old idea of missionary work has 
passed away and passed away forever. No longer does 
the missionary go out with iconoclastic hammer to 
break down every religion he meets in order to substitute 
Christianity. He goes rather to turn men's attention to 
the beauty of native religions in order that he may lift 
up into the fulfilling religion of Christianity all that is 
good and all that is holy in the Oriental cults. I cannot 
forget that it was Earl Cromer who defended the mission- 
ary, the philanthropist, the social reformer, who with 
all their mistakes, carried away by their enthusiasm 
which is heedless of worldly prudence, effect reforms of 
the highest importance and lead the administrator and 
politician to success. Nor can I forget that it was Earl 
Cromer who said that the first and most important duty 
of the British representative in Egypt was by example 
and precept to set up a high standard of morality both 
in public and private life, in order that he might bring 
to bear upon the community in which he lived the 
mighty force of Christian integrity. Whether as individ- 
uals or nations we must give our best to the Orient be- 
cause the lesser things are dependent upon the greater. 
Though we may be rich, or think ourselves rich in our 
intellectual pride and our material possessions, we are 
poor until we know Jesus Christ as our individual friend 
and our National Saviour. The example of the Master 

16 



242 NATION FOR THE NATIONS 

who pleased not Himself, was to give His character to 
His fellows — who, though He was rich, yet for our sakes 
became poor, that we through His poverty might 
become rich. I know, because I am a man, how the 
waves of doubt beat against the soul, and difficult it is 
always to apprehend Christ as the ages have pictured 
Him to us. But He is available for all who truly seek 
Him. If He fails us, to whom can we go? From whom 
can we seek that strength which alone will enable us to 
bear the infirmities of the weak? Whatever we think 
of Christ, He stands to-day as the one fascinating, 
compelling figure in the universe. 



XX 

NATIONAL STEWARDSHIP 1 

Jehovah saith, 'Tis too light for thy being my servant, to raise up the 
tribes of Jacob, or gather the survivors of Israel. So I will set thee a light 
of the nations, to be my salvation to the end of the earth. Isaiah xlix, 6. 

THIS is a national day and national matters should 
engross our attention. The daily thankfulness 
that characterizes normal Christian life, on this annual 
festival is centred on those blessings which descend 
upon us as a nation and which come to the individual 
through the nation by virtue of his citizenship. 

The words I have quoted as a text are taken from the 
records of the people with the most strongly marked 
nationality in history. During their career, because of 
their national inefficiency, they had to go through the 
discipline of bondage under King Nebuchadnezzar. 
They became "the convicts of God" in Babylon. But 
Babylon failed in her trust as God's minister of justice. 
"She unnecessarily and cruelly oppressed them. . . . 

1 A Thanksgiving Day address, delivered in Manila, November 28, 
1912. 

243 



244 NATIONAL STEWARDSHIP 

She used them for her own aggrandizement." So 
Babylon fell under a curse, and experienced that quick 
ruin and ultimate loneliness which is the fate of "a 
merely commercial community," a community "that 
never had other attractions even for her own citizens 
than those of gain or of pleasure." Cyrus, God's 
shepherd, came as a secular messiah to the captive and 
oppressed Jews. In the year 538 B.C. he gave liberty to 
the exiles, who returned to Jerusalem to raise up a new 
city and a new Temple upon the ruins of the old. Cyrus 
thus furnished the Jews with direct aid in the restoration 
of their nationalism. 

It is to this period that the words of my text belong : 
" Jehovah saith. 'Tis too light for thy being my servant, 
to raise up the tribes of Jacob, or gather the survivors of 
Israel. So I will set thee a light of the nations, to be my 
salvation to the ends of the earth." 1 The Jewish nation 
had the task of renewing and unifying its life. But that 
was insufficient for its capacity. It had also a more 
exalted and inspiring function. It was to illumine other 



1 "The passage is manifestly a piece of personification. The servant is 
Israel — not now the nation as a whole, not the body and bulk of the 
Israelites. For they are to be the object of his first efforts, but the 
loyal, conscious, and effective Israel, realized in some of her members, 
there personified by our prophet, who himself speaks for her out of 
his heart, in the first person." George Adam Smith on Isaiah, vol. 
ii, p. 255. 



NATIONAL STEWARDSHIP 245 

nations and spread its own privileges to the uttermost 
part of the earth, and, I might add, to the end of time. 
A prejudiced and cheap criticism claims that "the ill- 
starred Jewish scriptures have wrought ruin to the 
mind of the Teutonic nations "; whereas, the truth is 
that the prophecy which proclaimed the Israel, ideally- 
considered, to be "a light of the nations," and God's 
"salvation to the end of the earth" has been fulfilled. 
To-day our deepest privileges are built upon their 
Messiah, their experiences and their ideals, so that when 
we render thanks to God it is for blessings which have 
come, directly or indirectly, through His chosen people, 
His typical nation, as the instrument. 

I wish to lay it down as a fundamental principle that 
there is no salvation for the individual except in and 
through society. A state and a church are as necessary 
to human life as sun and air are necessary to plant or 
animal life. By salvation I mean the protection and 
expansion to the limit of human life — a state of per- 
manent security which permits and encourages personal 
self -development. Disorganize society and at the same 
time you disturb the "unalienable rights " of the individ- 
ual. Life is jeopardized, liberty is dislocated, and the 
pursuit of happiness is checked. On the other hand, 
build up the well-ordered unity of a nation and you 
open wide to its citizens privilege and opportunity that 



246 NATIONAL STEWARDSHIP 

satisfy and stimulate. No one political programme is 
necessary, but any will suffice which co-ordinates and 
developes national resources in consonance with the 
mind, and through the co-operation of a majority of the 
citizens. 

The two great departments of organized society 
needed for the salvation of the individual, the Church 
and the State, are interdependent while being distinct 
and free. The Church deals with men as forming a 
society which reaches from the remote beginning of 
human history to the furthest recesses of the hidden 
future, as citizens of a world-wide and age-long kingdom. 
The State is defined by Hobbes as "one person for 
whose acts a great multitude by mutual covenants, 
one with another, have made themselves the author, to 
the end that he may use the means and strength of 
them all as he shall think expedient for their peace and 
common defence." For the most part the State takes 
cognizance of the present or the immediate future, 
affording scope for religion without partiality to its 
varying expression, and giving its main attention to 
temporalities and their regulation, so as to afford the 
utmost liberty to the individual that social integrity 
will allow. 

In our lives as American citizens what are our greatest 
blessings? Probably we could sum up everything in the 



NATIONAL STEWARDSHIP 247 

one word liberty. Blessings are bestowed it is true, but 
they are also won. The higher gifts of civilization are to 
be had only through personal effort and industry. The 
State affords us opportunity and facilities, and it is 
contingent upon our purpose and diligence whether or 
not we avail ourselves of that which the State offers. 
Thus we are given in the public schools facilities and 
opportunity for intellectual training, and we owe to the 
nation to-day our mental equipment. The American 
State leaves it open to its citizens to select each his own 
path. The highest and most honorable positions in 
politics, commerce, and professional life are a possibility 
to the least, and there is an honorable road leading to 
the summit of any honorable vocation. Each citizen 
has a voice and a hand in shaping the affairs of his 
immediate community, and also in framing the laws of 
the nation. There are about us numberless and more 
or less intangible influences and treasures which are 
directly the product of our nation and which we accept 
as commonplaces of civilization. Anxieties relative to 
health and bodily safety are minimized; defence from 
the wanton aggression of foreigners, facilities of travel, 
respect for personal possessions, are so widespread and 
satisfactory that our critical spirit, if aroused, finds 
meagre opportunity for exercise. Where privilege is 
abused and the laws evaded so as to menace the citizen- 



248 NATIONAL STEWARDSHIP 

ship of the weak and less favored, steady effort is being 
put forth to remedy the conditions which foster the evil. 
Philanthropy is fast assuming a new form and, instead 
of making doles, is aiming to secure for the undermost 
citizen a fair opportunity for self-realization, a decent 
environment, and a share in those common benefits 
which belong to man by right and make it possible for 
a state to be a commonwealth. 

This is a principle which extends to groups of people 
such as the North American Indians, and to nascent 
nations like the Filipinos. The State is not a Lady 
Bountiful scattering largess with condescending hand, 
but a trustee measuring out justice and giving equitable 
consideration to all within the boundaries of her 
stewardship. For us, as for Israel, it is too light that as 
the servant of God's purposes we should hug our privi- 
leges and bestow our attention solely upon our own 
internal affairs. We too have our mission to the nations, 
and our duty touches the ends of the earth. Ourselves 
the children of revolution, we did not chide the Cubans 
in their revolt, but sheltered them from further molesta- 
tion and, for the first time in history, a strong nation 
set in order the affairs of a weak one and turned over to 
it the management of its national concerns. As for our 
relation to the Filipinos it can never be anything but one 
of stewardship. We are pledged not to exploit, but to 



NATIONAL STEWARDSHIP 249 

develop, not as in the case of Nebuchadnezzar selfishly 
to promote our commerce and seek our aggrandizement, 
but to enlarge their industry and foster their aspirations. 
To those of us, and we are in the majority, who are 
dispassionate in this matter, no brighter day could 
dawn than Philippine Independence Day. The aspira- 
tion of the Filipino toward autonomy is not merely 
natural but commendable. The situation would indeed 
be hopeless were it wanting. We did not give it him; 
we found him with it. The whole course of our occupa- 
tion has been to help the Filipino to self-help. He is 
impatient. We have no right to meet his impatience 
with counter impatience. If at times we are confronted 
by what is irrational we must all the more be rational. 
After all the question between him and us is not one of 
oppression or tyranny, but rather one of good judgment 
in determining when and under what conditions to 
sever the silken cord of friendly guidance which, amid 
whatever blundering and individual wrongdoing, has 
from the first bound him and his fellows to America. 
In this deliberately planned effort to set up independent 
republics because of a proper respect for nationality, 
America is a pioneer, blazing a new trail. Other great 
nations have tried to repress the nationality of weak 
nations; our programme is to develop it. But we are 
responsible to the world at large, to the whole family of 



250 NATIONAL STEWARDSHIP 

nations for the quality of the governments which we 
set up. We, as trustees, are following not a policy of 
political expediency, but the voice of conscience and 
common-sense. We are ready in the future as in the 
past to take counsel with Filipinos as to what is best for 
their interests, but our ultimate judgment, based upon 
the advice of our most experienced men and wisest 
statesmen when all the evidence is in, must be accepted 
and acted upon. We have never given much heed to our 
national dignity in Philippine relations, but a suggestion 
of open rebellion against American sovereignty, calls 
for insistence on this principle. The alternative would 
be, if it were impossible for us to give our best save at 
the point of the bayonet, immediate and complete 
withdrawal of the American Government from any 
participation in or responsibility for Philippine affairs. 
The new Philippine Government would be left free to 
choose under whose aegis other than her own to work out 
her destiny. In case of misdemeanor or incompetence 
she would have to face the criticism and chastisement 
of any and every nation offended. America cannot 
afford to assume responsibility for blunders in govern- 
ment, without being the principal participant in the 
conduct of affairs. Nor can she ask for the neutrality of 
other nations in respect of a prospective government, 
whose stability and efficiency she could not honestly 



NATIONAL STEWARDSHIP 251 

guarantee or stand surety for. Furthermore, I believe, 
she will not countenance the shedding of her own life 
blood and that of the Filipinos, in order to thrust down 
the throats of an ungrateful and rebellious people 
privileges, however valuable. But I cannot seriously 
think of any such dilemma arising, or any such lament- 
able fate happening to the Philippines. Where no great 
matter exists to irritate the restless, small matters are 
magnified until they seem a casus belli. Here in this 
increasingly prosperous and free country, there is no 
governmental oppression and little to disturb except a 
matter which is chiefly theory — a question of more or 
less time for the working out of a purpose concerning 
which there is no dispute. Were it otherwise, an appeal 
to some international court of arbitration as at The 
Hague might possibly be in order. It is simply that 
some Filipinos wish to be headlong and we to be 
deliberate. 

Probably no patriot is more worthy of being patiently 
heard than Cavour, the champion of Italian liberty and 
unity. Cavour's theory of right political method — 
"that method which, he was destined to prove, may, in 
the hands of a master, be far more effective than 
revolution" — was "the method of highest opportunism 
. . . the opportunism of a statesman whose acts all 
tend to the desired goal, although like the wise pilot he 



252 NATIONAL STEWARDSHIP 

may lay his course to port or starboard, to catch a 
favoring wind or to ride out a gale. Opportunism has 
come to mean drifting, without chart or compass; 
Cavour meant by it that, having dedicated his life to 
certain principles, he would seize every means, use 
every tool, gain now an inch and now an ell, in endeavor- 
ing to make these principles prevail. "* The National 
Society advocated revolution and chafed at delays. 
" Cavour had always to be prepared for the danger that 
they might grow uncontrollably impatient; men who 
have once had the revolutionary fever, do not easily 
settle down to accept the slower methods of legality." 
Italy's circumstances were much more exasperating 
than those of the Philippines. Italy had active foes to 
independence and national liberty in the Papacy and a 
bitter opponent of unity in Austria. The Philippines 
have a friend and promoter of unity and liberty in 
America. Hence the policy of a Cavour would be much 
more to the point here than there. " I announce to you," 
he said, " that I am an honest middle man (juste milieu), 
desiring, wishing, working with all his might for social 
progress, but resolved not to purchase this at the cost of 
a general overturn, political and social. My Golden 
Mean position does not prevent me, however, from 
desiring at the soonest possible moment Italy's emanci- 
1 Thayer's Life and Times of Cavour, vol. i, p. 31. 



NATIONAL STEWARDSHIP 253 

pation from the barbarians who oppress her; conse- 
quently, I foresee that a crisis, however slight its 
violence, is inevitable; but I would bring this crisis to 
pass with all the caution which the state of affairs 
demands, and I am besides ultrapersuaded that the 
efforts of the madmen of the movement only retard it 
and make it more ticklish." 1 

Now this is history, not theory. The Filipinos have 
their Garibaldi or martial leader, they have their 
Mazzini or doctrinaire agitator, but where is their 
Cavour or "honest middle man"? In his absence let 
them be guided by his principles. A nascent state 
moving up slowly toward independence, with no true 
aspiration for liberty slighted by the superintending 
country, will give to the individual his unalienable 
rights as defined by the American Constitution to a 
degree impossible to be given by a republic prematurely 
born. Such republics have come to the birth, but have 
been so far from being a light to the nations as to 
become a thorn in their side, and have never risen high 
enough to be anything but a nuisance to themselves. 

But enough of grim thoughts. Let us away from 
exploring the depressing realm of indiscretion and 
failure to seek those uplands of final achievement into 
which we are conducted on the wings of hope and 
1 Life and Times of Cavour, vol. i, p. 30. 



254 NATIONAL STEWARDSHIP 

expectation. Nations are Divine. God presides over 
them and delivers them from their tangles. The growing 
national life of the venerable Chinese race, seeking the 
support of wise foreign advisers, or of the youthful, 
ardent Filipino people, struggling for the first time 
toward autonomy and chafing under kindly foreign 
guidance, is as valuable in the eyes of the God of the 
Nations as the long established government of the 
Western world. With all the unrest of the day which 
threatens the established order, there is in the air a 
degree of enthusiasm and expectancy that promises a 
grand to-morrow. Nations will wax and wane according 
to those inexorable laws which have indelibly written 
their warnings and counsels in the experience of history. 
National considerateness, national self-restraint and 
virility, and national righteousness lead to a glorious 
national destiny. National selfishness, national luxury 
and self-indulgence, and national wickedness lead to 
national disintegration. 

We thank God this day that those who laid the 
foundations of our nation and those who reared her 
stately walls had no soft conception of liberty and held 
no loose theory of unity. To them we owe it that we 
have entered a goodly heritage and received a precious 
trust. Our nation, once little and struggling and alone 
with nothing but an ideal to support her, is now set as a 



NATIONAL STEWARDSHIP 255 

beacon on a hill, as an ensign to the world. She must 
shed her light, as in their turn did Israel, and Greece, 
and Rome, on peoples afar. It is her definite task to 
bring national salvation to these Islands of the Sea. 

Two terrific typhoons have just devastated Cebu, 
Panay, and Leyte, and at this moment of our rejoicing 
the poor stricken Visayas are making pathetic appeal, 
stretching toward us twice maimed hands from the 
flood and wreck of the tempest. 

Let us make our offerings for their relief, in motive 
and generosity, a pledge to the entire Filipino people 
that we are minded to administer our National Trust 
until the day in which we proudly and confidently 
commit to the Filipino Nation a stable government of 
the people, by the people, for the people. 



XXI 

NATIONALITY * 

Our Commonwealth is in heaven. Phil. Hi, 20; I am Roman born. Acts 
xxii, 28. 

|"T is the urgency of the current crisis, not the whim of 
■*- the preacher, which constrains us to the considera- 
tion, with earnestness and candor, of the subject of 
nationality. We would be culpably missing the call of 
the times were we to fail to view, in its bearing upon 
our own nation and citizenship, this most stupendous 
international struggle that the world has ever known. 
I am convinced that there are few men who are despic- 
able enough to treat the nation as a cluster of grapes to 
be squeezed into their own cup. Most of us view it as a 
parent to whom we owe a life service, and we are keen 
to learn how best we may fulfil our responsibility. 

I have plucked from history one of its most influential 
figures, that, with his own living voice, he may tell you 
the meaning to him of nationality. I mean the man, 

1 Preached at the Cathedral of S. Mary and S. John, Manila, on 
October 25, 1914. 

256 



NATIONALITY 257 

Paul, who to many of us is not the close companion 
that he should be because he is set down as a pious 
dreamer and religious fanatic. If he was an Apostle, 
he was none the less scholar, handicraftsman, organizer, 
patriot. The two pregnant sentences I have quoted 
were spoken, one, when he was in Rome, a prisoner 
awaiting trial; the other, earlier when he was threatened 
by his captors with indignity and injustice prior to his 
appeal to Caesar. 

"Common wealth" is a word held in honor by those 
of us who hail from Massachusetts, Pennsylvania, 
Virginia, or Kentucky. It has noble historicity, pro- 
claiming at once the health of the State and the common 
responsibility of all citizens to contribute to it. At the 
time S. Paul lived the word "politeuma" — "common- 
wealth" or "citizenship" — had deep meaning. The 
pax Romana was the guarantee of and opportunity for 
citizenship. Roman citizenship was the most coveted 
dignity of the Western world. This S. Paul had, but he 
also was a citizen in the Commonwealth of heaven. 

S. Paul loved his own town and refers to himself as 
"a citizen of no mean city." We, in this far-off country, 
can understand with what fondness he mentioned the 
town of his birth. It is with no forced emotion that we 
think of the city or the countryside where we first saw 
the light, and where we rejoiced in the careless exuber- 
17 



258 NATIONALITY 

ance of youth. But he also valued at high worth his 
position in the Empire. When his enemies threatened 
him with outrage, he proclaimed his citizenship. "Tell 
me," said the officer who had him in charge, "art thou 
a Roman ?" "Yes," he replied. "With great sum ob- 
tained I this citizenship," exclaimed the officer. "But 
I am a Roman born," said S. Paul with patriotic pride. 
Then when injustice still pursued him he claimed his 
right of appeal to Caesar. 

Thus we see him in his twofold citizenship. He did 
not consider that his loyalty to the heavenly common- 
wealth cancelled or impaired his nationality. It 
heightened it and gave it new importance. 

Nationality, next to personality, is our precious 
birthright, or else in some cases a crowning treasure 
acquired by choice. It may be that some of us who have 
won our nationality at great cost value it even more 
than many who accept it as a birthright. However that 
may be, nationality is something a man demands for 
himself and from which he cannot separate himself 
except by a violence which leaves him hardly human. 
I have just laid down from a fresh reading Edward 
Everett Hale's Man Without a Country. No single piece 
of literature more beautifully pictures the wonder of 
nationality and its imperishableness. 

Listen to a British statesman and publicist: 



NATIONALITY 259 

"Say what we will of the unity of history and the 
identity in elements of human nature, the general body 
of two political cases " — Lord Morley is arguing against 
parallelism — "is never exactly the same. Nations are 
not the same, their ideals are wide apart, their standing 
aims and preoccupations are different." 

Or again, let a German statesman go on record : 

"Every nation is convinced of the higher value, and 
consequently of the better right, of its own civilization, 
and is inspired by a strong desire, which is like an 
unconscious natural force, to attain more and more 
authority for its own civilization. Not every nation is 
conscious of this force. . . . Such a steady conscious- 
ness of national civilization exists to-day among the 
English people. . . . The English belief in the superi- 
ority of their own intellectual, moral, religious, legal 
and economic life is the vital force in English national 
policy." 

This vital force it was, first as an unconscious, later 
as a conscious, influence, that brought America to the 
Philippines. It was to the benefit of the race that we 
brought the direct pressure of our superior civilization 
to bear upon the decadent nationality prevalent prior 
to the American occupation and not wholly extinct yet. 
The moment we cease to believe this we have no more 
place here. 



260 NATIONALITY 

"To deride patriotism marks impoverished blood, 
but to extol it as an ideal or an impulse above truth and 
justice, at the cost of the general interests of humanity, 
is far worse." The violent language of Frederic Harrison, 
on the one side, and of Professor Eucken, usually so 
poised a mind, on the other, is self-damaging and dis- 
appointing. Nationality stands for disciplined patriot- 
ism. A patriot is one whose nationality is a constant 
and vivid factor in his thought and activity. A traitor 
is one who uses nationality dishonorably, betraying the 
common weal to his own advantage and the benefit of 
its enemies, internal or external. Dante puts the traitor 
in the lowest circle of the Inferno. 

A patriotic song or a patriotic deed has of all songs 
and deeds the best chance to become immortal. So the 
unknown German singer of the twelfth century still 
sings: 

Woe betide me. 

If I could ever constrain my heart 

To be pleased with foreign ways; 

German virtue is superior in all respects. 

Hubert de Burgh enshrined in literature by Shakes- 
peare, when Henry III degraded him (1232), found that 
"there was not a blacksmith in the whole land who 
would forge manacles for him; when threatened with 
torture the journeyman answered defiantly, 'Rather 



NATIONALITY 261 

will I die any death than ever put irons on the man who 
defended England from the alien!' The wandering 
bard knew that there was a German people and the 
blacksmith that there was an English one, when this 
fact had little more than begun to dawn upon many of 
the leading lights of politics. " 

What is the dominant spirit which is moving the 
people of Europe to-day as they wave the sabre or train 
the gun? Is it hatred of their fellows? I hope not. I 
think not. Whatever the direct cause of the struggle, it 
is the love of country that now obscures all else. As a 
British correspondent writes: "Many who were foes 
last week are good comrades now — how terrible it would 
be if death were the end! " Thank God, their Common- 
wealth is in heaven. 

Nationality finds expression in four chief ways: 
(1) Religiously, in terms of the ideal; (2) intellectually, 
in terms of education; (3) economically, in terms of 
industry; (4) politically, in terms of Government. 

1. Religiously. "Our Commonwealth is in heaven." 
Religion reveals and sustains the idealism which is the 
foundation of the experience of history, and of national 
character. It establishes our relationships which must 
ultimately be heaven-high and earth-wide. Goethe main- 
tains that " vitally mobile individuality becomes aware 
of itself as ' inwardly limitless, outwardly limited.' " 



262 NATIONALITY 

We can have no stable earthly commonwealth unless 
we first have a heavenly commonwealth. In other 
words life is built on principles, facts upon ideals. 

Let us never forget that it was religion, not adventure 
or chance, that laid the corner-stone of the American 
nation. Quaker and Puritan crossed the vast waters 
that they might worship God and practice righteousness 
according to that liberty of soul which is the earnest of 
our heavenly citizenship. If a country denies or belies 
its religious foundations it dooms itself for ever and a 
day. In the Jewish race read the fate of every nation 
that has opportunity to accept Christ and rejects him. 
It spells denationalization. 

The religion of Christ should be the most potent 
unifying, peace-making force in the world, binding the 
nations into one great family with a silken cord. But 
its distortion and dismemberment have led men to be- 
lieve that their commonwealth is in Episcopalianism, 
Presbyterianism, Roman Catholicism, or some other 
"ism" rather than in heaven! However, things are 
mending. We have got at least this far. A conference 
of the Churches of Christendom is in preparation to 
consider questions of Faith and Order with a view to 
unity. We have advanced with a rapidity in four years 
that is miraculous. Some forty-eight Commissions have 
been appointed from as many distinct communions. 



NATIONALITY 

" Before the outbreak of the European war, notice had 
been received of the appointment of forty-eight Com- 
missions in the United States, Canada, South America, 
England, Scotland, Ireland, Europe, Australia, South 
Africa, India, and China to co-operate in the prepara- 
tions for and holding of the World Conference on the 
Faith and Order of the Christian Church. Other Com- 
missions were in process of appointment, so that it can 
be said that the proposal has the approval of the Angli- 
can Communion throughout the world, of the leading 
Protestant Communions in all English-speaking coun- 
tries, of the Old Catholic Churches of Europe, and the 
warm sympathy of dignitaries of the Holy Orthodox 
Eastern Church and of many leading Roman Catholics 
in different parts of the world. 

"Until the Secretary began correspondence last May 
to make arrangements for the Deputation, no effort 
had been made to present the matter generally in 
Europe, but that correspondence showed that the 
proposal of the Conference had become widely known. 
Not only were leading individuals in every country 
looking with interest for an opportunity to co-operate, 
but many religious papers had published sympathetic 
accounts, not only in countries like Germany which 
might be expected to be in touch with American relig- 
ious thought, but in others more remote like Finland 



264 NATIONALITY 

and Hungary. Almost everyone in Great Britain and 
on the Continent of Europe who knew of the proposal 
recognized it as the most important question before the 
Christian world, for, until the obstacles to Christian 
Unity are removed by that thorough appreciation of 
each other by the Christian Communions of the world 
and the consequent destruction of the prejudices and 
misunderstandings which are so largely the cause of the 
continuance of their divisions, their separate and often 
hostile efforts to preach to the world Christ and His law 
of love and righteousness and peace will continue to be 
only feebly effective. 

"One of the first and greatest lessons of this dreadful 
war which is convulsing half the world is that only by 
unity in the one Lord Jesus Christ, the Prince of Peace, 
can Christians help to make the Kingdoms of the world 
the Kingdoms of the Lord and of His Christ, and surely 
the terrible destruction which the war will cause, what- 
ever else may be its issue, will make Christians see more 
clearly the need of a reunited Christianity." 

The Church in this city goes limping because the laity 
as a whole do not recognize that the clergy are no more 
the Church than your head is your body. Many laymen 
are sitting outside on the seat of the scorners. They 
refuse to claim their place in the Commonwealth of 
heaven. 



NATIONALITY 265 

2. Intellectually. We are still in the realm of idealism, 
which makes for larger unities. The nation reaches a 
corporate mind through education. But in this connec- 
tion, do not make the foolish mistake of confusing 
information with knowledge, or learning with education. 
Though science, dealing as it does with the universal, 
makes for cosmopolitanism rather than nationality, it 
can progress only through national experiences and 
national institutions. It is a truism to say there 
can be no internationalism without nationalism. In- 
ternationalism is the only true universalism, outwardly 
considered. 

It is an integral part of democracy to make education 
nationwide. An intelligent commonalty is an indispen- 
sable requisite to a stable nation. It is for this reason 
that with kindly and frank insistence many of us hope 
for a protracted and intimate relationship between the 
United States and the Philippines. No strong nation 
has ever been created by the greatness of its great men, 
but by the greatness of its common people. As John 
Bright said, "The nation is in the cottage." The 
Philippines can perhaps learn the full value of the direct 
pressure of America's nationality upon them by its 
complete removal. 

3. Economically. Economic robustness is the only 
foundation for the temporalities of the State. A nation 



266 NATIONALITY 

must by means of science and industry know how to 
produce and how to distribute. We have learned the 
former but not the latter. We are skilled in creating and 
concentrating wealth: we are clumsy in distributing it. 
Owing to this defect there is civil war in Colorado. The 
miners have accepted the President's wise proposition 
for a three years' truce. May the operators soon cease 
their objections and fall into line. 

Again our country is distressed because the ethics 
of distribution seem so hopelessly befogged. Pick up a 
paper and you will find citizens asking such searching 
questions as the following: 

"1. How far is a man bound to take the Sermon on 
the Mount as a guide to industrial relations? How far 
is it feasible to so take it, and at what points is he likely 
to be checkmated? Is he bound to literal obedience? 
If not, why? 

"2. Has the Christian any responsibility for the 
conditions under which the articles he buys are made? 
If so, how can he best fulfil it ? 

"3. How far is he responsible for the moral integrity 
of the conditions of labor in the interests in which his 
money is invested? Is ignorance an adequate excuse 
for evading such responsibility?" 

These are pertinent questions which loyalty to the 
nation requires the citizen to answer with reference to 



NATIONALITY 267 

his obligations to his earthly as well as his heavenly 
commonwealth. 

Economic robustness still puts agriculture first and 
industry second. Let the Philippines learn the lesson 
well. The fertility of women seems to be singularly 
bound up with rural and to suffer from industrial life. 
In thirty years, owing to industrialization, births in 
Germany decreased forty-three for every one thousand 
women. 

4. Politically. Political life comes last, because it 
should be the direct product of the other three phases 
of nationality. The political is subordinate to religion, 
education, and industry. The least thing of the many 
good things which America has given the Philippines has 
been "politics." Politics as an end in itself, as a trade, 
is a force prejudicial rather than favorable to national- 
ity. As a natural result and expression of religion, 
thought, and industry, it spells good government. 
America has overemphasized politics as though some- 
thing apart, a superior sphere, just as the old school 
of political economy viewed their science. Politics alone 
can never save a country or produce nationality, though 
it is capable of the opposite of salvation. Political 
expediency is more often than not a mellifluous phrase 
covering up the injustice of party spleen, and the un- 
righteous tricks of party selfishness. 



268 NATIONALITY 

Because of non-Christian politics, politics superim- 
posed upon instead of being created by the nation, the 
world's heart to-day is being wrung with unparalleled 
anguish. Each hour makes new widows and orphans 
and the sound of weeping sweeps from East to West and 
echoes from Pole to Pole. Many homes in many 
countries, "in which there now exists the fond hope 
the distant one may return — many such homes may be 
rendered desolate when the next mail arrives. The 
angel of death is abroad; you may almost hear the 
beating of his wings. There is no one, as when the first- 
born was slain of old, to sprinkle with blood the lintel 
and the two side posts of our doors, that he may spare 
and pass on; he takes his victims from the castle of the 
noble, the mansions of the wealthy, the cottages of the 
poor and lowly," — how wonderfully Bright's words on 
the Crimean war fit the moment ! 

The cause — shall we seek the cause? Politics apart 
from the true life of the people and the breakdown — oft 
repeated before — of what is called diplomacy. 

Our one hope is that the world is still brave and young 
and free, that the highest experiments of national life 
are yet to be made, that our Commonwealth is in heaven, 
and God reigns. And remember you are the nation. 



XXII 

AMERICAN DEMOCRACY IN THE PHILIPPINE 
ISLANDS 1 

TN discussing this subject I claim no superior knowl- 
■*■ edge. But perhaps the reconsideration of familiar 
truths may be of service to us. 

First, let it be understood that in talking of democ- 
racy we are talking of a principle rather than a form 
of government. Democracy utters itself in various 
forms of government according to the genius of the 
people embracing the principle. Thus we have the 
democracy of England or Canada or Australia rising 
into one kind of government, and that of the United 
States of America into another. Yet the democracy of 
the one is quite as pure as that of the other. 

Consequently our aim in the Philippine Islands is not 
to superimpose upon the Filipinos American institu- 
tions or American methods of government, but to 
implant a principle which will ultimately express itself 

1 An address delivered at the Zamboanga Theatre, Monday evening, 
August 19th, 1912. 

269 



270 AMERICAN DEMOCRACY 

in terms best suited to the temperament and gifts of 
the Filipinos. If our work is well done and if the Fili- 
pinos are true to the principle of democracy, at some 
distant date they will make their own contribution to 
the world's experiments in government and popular 
institutions. 

Definition is difficult. In considering democracy one 
naturally turns to Lincoln's immortal words at Gettys- 
burg. But great as they are we must go further still to 
arrive at the controlling idea of democracy, which is 
found, the direct product of Christianity, in that 
principle which demands that man should do as he 
would be done by. Self-respect and the respect of one's 
neighbor on equal terms lies behind all democratic insti- 
tutions. 

According to my way of thinking there is no such 
thing as race prejudice. It is just common every day 
prejudice dressed up in fancy clothing. The prejudices 
which men of differing races feel against one another 
may have their origin in that which has little or nothing 
to do with differences in blood. The explanation is that 
there is judgment without sufficient knowledge, or 
prejudgment before there has been opportunity to 
become acquainted with fact. All prejudice, including 
race prejudice, goes deeper than the color of skin or 
peculiarities of blood. It is the injustice due to the 



IN THE PHILIPPINE ISLANDS 271 

limitations and ignorances, the selfishness and narrow- 
ness of the person judging. 

If this is true the democratic principle comes into 
play in a formed purpose and deliberate and sustained 
effort to understand and sympathize. It is obvious that 
there must be serious endeavor, especially where tem- 
peraments are as different as among Americans and 
Filipinos. The Filipino is pious; the American is not. 
The Filipino is courteous; the American is brusque. The 
Filipino is deliberate; the American is headlong. 
The Filipino is reserved; the American is communica- 
tive. On the one side and the other there must be that 
interested, sympathetic reaching out that will pass by 
differing characteristics to find and to know the real 
man who thinks and acts. A diplomat, standing high 
in the British service, upon leaving Egypt wrote a 
book, Through Others' Eyes, in which he expressed 
himself as of the conviction that his personal failures 
in administration and those of his fellows were due to 
lack of sympathy and effort to understand. 

In saying what I am about to say I speak as a practi- 
cal man rather than as one who desires merely to 
promote piety : There is no surer way of knowing men 
than by praying for them. General Gordon maintained 
that he found it made a difference when he prayed for 
the men, wild fanatics of Egypt, he was about to meet. 



272 AMERICAN DEMOCRACY 

Let the army officer and the constabulary officer do 
likewise and they will have like results — a sympathetic 
mind and a power to understand and so to deal in a 
kindly way with the fractious and difficult. 

The democratic principle avoids force except as a 
last resort. "Who overcomes by force hath overcome 
but half his foe." Even where law permits force the 
true democrat avoids using it if he can discover a means 
of escape. I rejoice to see evidences of moral suasion and 
kindly guidance steadily taking the place of the strong 
arm and compelling weapon. 

Not many decades since, Lord Palmerston in trying 
to form a cabinet had difficulty in getting a Secretary of 
State for the Colonies. He solved the problem by taking 
them over himself, saying to an under-secretary : " Come 

up-stairs and show me on the map where these places 

are." In those days England was just beginning to 
realize that colonies were not opportunities for exploita- 
tion, but for service. Soon came Lord Cromer's noble 
record, which brought blessing to England it is true, 
but the blessing of unselfish service. He thought first of 
Egypt's need and brought her from bankruptcy to 
affluence. He gathered together the scattered fragments 
of her nationality and gave her hope of being reinstated 
among the nations of the world. 

Then followed the slow readjustment of England's 



IN THE PHILIPPINE ISLANDS 273 

whole colonial policy which will probably end in Im- 
perial Federation by which the colonies will have voice 
and vote in all that pertains to Empire. It was at a 
period when England's colonial policy was becoming 
markedly unselfish and fair that America found herself 
with dependencies. She didn't want them. Some coun- 
tries, like Germany, need them for an outlet for surplus 
population. America has no such need. It is curious 
that our earliest dependency should be as far away from 
home as the size of the earth permits. From the first 
the nation as a whole has had a single desire for the 
Filipinos, and that is to share its privileges with them 
and put them in the way of self-government. To-day 
they have a measure of self-government which is not 
paralleled in history by any dependency save the Anglo- 
Saxon overseas dominions of Great Britain. I wish 
that by a larger measure of appreciation the Filipinos 
would try to get the most rather than the least out of 
their relation with America. As a Christian people their 
natural affiliations are with the West rather than with 
China and Japan. Moreover they have a capacity for 
democratic development, partly by virtue of their long 
tutelage under Christian Spain. 

In quoting lopsided epigrams like "The Philippines 
for the Filipinos" (which is as misleading as would be 
"America for the Americans") we must not suppose 

18 



274 AMERICAN DEMOCRACY 

that America first discovered the principle of a strong 
nation serving a weak dependency. England after long, 
painful effort arrived at it and we have carried it a 
degree further. The experimental suggestion came from 
the British Empire and the logic of American democ- 
racy utilized it in its own way. 

Those who hold office under our government for the 
specific purpose of carrying out the mind of the Amer- 
ican people in the Philippines have both an inspiring 
and a delicate task. Democracy makes duty splendid 
and it is refreshing to think of the many Americans 
who live strong, clean, loyal lives with little or nothing 
to support them save this sense of responsibility. Do 
not count me a harsh critic if I express regret that too 
many Americans who hold office under the government 
risk their disinterestedness, which means the success of 
their undertaking, by becoming involved in money- 
making schemes and speculative enterprise. Their 
vocation is too valuable a possession to be risked for 
the sake of gain. Patience, infinite patience, and self- 
sacrifice are the necessary attendants of the success of 
such a task as is ours. The reward is of a higher and 
more enduring kind than that which comes from busi- 
ness ventures. The history of the East India Company 
shows that there cannot be a combination of govern- 
ment and trade without danger of disaster and corrup- 



IN THE PHILIPPINE ISLANDS 275 

tion. I believe this applies to the representative of 
government not less than to government itself. 

A decade and more of American democracy in the 
Philippines has gone. Its years are strewn with the 
graves of those who have given their lives for the cause. 
Neither they nor we regret the sacrifice. Though, were 
we to withdraw now, the torch of democracy might be 
extinguished, I believe the day will come after we of 
to-day have finished our duty on earth, when America 
can relinquish it into Filipino hands with confidence 
that its flame will be fed and its light spread abroad. 
This consummation depends at least in part on whether 
we are true to our ideal, for after all American democ- 
racy is an ideal rather than a finished product. 

Lord Cromer maintained that his first and funda- 
mental duty was to conform his own life and that of his 
family to the highest moral and social standards. 
There can be no substitute for this. We must do our 
work with industrious, loyal, clean hands, not daunted 
but stimulated by difficulty, each one aiming to be, 

" One who never turns his back but marched breast forward, 
Never doubted clouds would break, never dreamed though right were 

worsted, wrong would triumph, 
Held we fall to rise, are baffled to fight better, sleep to wake. 3 * 



XXIII 
FLAG DAY ADDRESS 1 

A NATIONAL Flag is not an ornament, but a symbol 
ranking next to the Cross and the Sacraments 
that flow from the Cross. Therefore we reverence our 
Flag. 

It is a symbol of the past and of the future, of achieve- 
ment and of responsibility, of history and inspiration. 
If it is rich with glory, it is also crammed with risks — 
the boast of yesterday, the hope of to-morrow. 

A symbol of the past, it gathers into its folds the 
story of the centuries, including the heritage of the days 
that preceded our national history and made the stock 
from which we sprung. So the Flag of to-day is ever 
richer than the Flag of yesterday. The symbol is the 
same; but its contents are increasingly greater. 

Every true citizen makes the imperishable contribu- 
tion of his life to the Flag. Were it not for this tide of 
honor which perpetually spills its purifying flood upon 

1 Preached at National Cathedral School for Girls, Washington, D. C, 
June 2, 1913. 

276 



FLAG DAY ADDRESS 277 

the Flag, it would bear the stain of those citizens whose 
contribution is not one of honor. 

This special Flag carries in its folds the history of the 
school year — the white of girlhood's purity, the red of 
girlhood's enthusiasm, the blue of girlhood's loyalty. 
It is the richest Flag that any girl of the School has 
ever received, not only because it contains the total 
experience of the school life, but also because this last 
year is notably rich in the spirit of voluntary adventure 
and the ready acceptance of the risk involved. Thus 
in the folds of our Flag is something inestimably fine, 
gaining for your School what every other School may 
well covet. The Principal who has guided its destinies 
through seven years, together with four associates, 
three of them her own teachers, is faring forth on an 
adventure in the name of God. She has laid down a 
privilege to embrace a risk, whatever the result may be, 
in the spirit of Captain Scott who accepted his risk, and 
at the painful end said, "We regret nothing." Long 
after the highest achievements of your ablest principals 
and teachers here grow dim, there will shine out of the 
School's annals this undying glory. x 

The latest philosophy claims that the greatest 
successes are contingent on the greatest risks. It is 

* Mrs. Barbour Walker and three of her staff resigned to volunteer for 
service in the Philippines. 



278 FLAG DAY ADDRESS 

great to respond to a personal call; it is greater to make 
a voluntary offer in response to the dumb appeal of a 
great need. 

It is a principle of physics that each thing is wherever 
it acts. In that every atom acts on every other atom 
everywhere, an atom fills the world. What is true of an 
atom is a thousand times more true of a personality. 
The presence of your Principal in being withdrawn 
becomes thereby intensified. 

None knows better than the soldier that the Flag is 
his charge as well as his protection. I have known our 
soldiers well, rank and file, and they are Men. It is most 
fitting that the Flag to-day goes to a soldier's daughter. 
She who receives it will guard the Flag and let the Flag 
guard her, rejoicing in its risks under the shadow of its 
shelter. 

There are two kinds of peril — that which you cannot 
avoid, which belongs to the life of the children of men, 
and that which you can avoid, which belongs to the 
life of the children of God. Aim to be Christian and you 
will be caught in the arms of the superior peril and its 
twin opportunity, which will ever keep swinging your 
life up to higher and higher levels. There is heroism 
both in doing and in not doing, now in the one, now in 
the other, as the need of the moment demands. To-day 
do not fall short of that courage which refrains from 



FLAG DAY ADDRESS 279 

doing certain things which stain society. The Flag is a 
challenge to both kinds of courage. 

There is a glory by inheritance and a glory by achieve- 
ment. The Flag admits you into the glory of your 
country's past that you may add to the glory of your 
country's future. 

"Nobly, nobly Cape S, Vincent to the northwest died away; 
Sunset ran, one glorious blood-red, ret king into Cadiz Bay; 
Bluish 'mid the burning water, full in face Trafalgar lay; 
In the dimmest northeast distance dawned Gibraltar grand and gray ; 
Here and here did England help me; how can I help England, say! 
Whoso turns as I this evening, turns to God to praise and pray, 
While Jove's planet rises yonder silent over Africa" 

Here and here has America helped me, how can I 
help America, say ! 



Ube Iftntcfecrbocfter ipress, "Wew ISorfe 



Works by the Rt. Rev. CHARLES H. BRENT, D.D. 
Bishop of the Philippine Islands 

WITH GOD IN THE WORLD 

Jfth Impression 
Small 12mo, cloth, $1.00 
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in Prayer; The Great Act of Worship; Witnesses unto the Utter- 
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Singularly straightforward, manly and helpful in tone. They 
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right to the point. The great idea of Christian fellowship with 
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brought home in a most effectual way. The Living Church. 

Thesubjects treated in this book are not only admirably chosen, 
but they are arranged in a sequence which leads the mind nat- 
urally to ever higher levels of thought; yet so simply are they 
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grasp their full meaning. . . . St. Andrew's Cross. 

ADVENTURE FOR GOD 

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iv. The Quest; v. The Equipment; vi. The Goal. 
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the value of the present volume becomes lessened. We have 
here no direct discussion of missionary problems, but rather 
an original manner of treatment of the missionary life from 
the personal point of view. The volume is of interest quite 
as truly as of value. The Living Church. 

LONGMANS, GREEN, & CO. 
LONDON, NEW YORK AND BOMBAY 



By the Rt. Rev. CHARLES H. BRENT, D. D. 
Bishop op the Philippine Islands 

THE CONSOLATIONS OF THE CROSS 

Addresses on the Seven Words of the Dying Lord 

Together with Two Sermons 

Small 12mo, cloth, 90 cents net; by mail, 96 cents 

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THE SPLENDOR OF THE HUMAN BODY 

A Reparation and an Appeal 

Small 12mo, cloth, 60 cents net 

Contents: 1. Order; 2. Magnitude; 3. Divinity; -£• Sanctity; 
5. Glory; 6. Therefore — . 

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"We consider this little book to be one which all parents 
may study with advantage and may give to their children." 

The Lancet, London. 

LONGMANS, GREEN, & CO., NEW YORK 



By the Rt. Rev. CHARLES H. BRENT, D.D. 
Bishop of the Philippine Islands 



LIBERTY AND OTHER SERMONS 

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ON THE CHURCH OF THE LIVING GOD 

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Works by the Rt. Rev. CHARLES H. BRENT, D.D. 

Bishop of the Philippine Islands 



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; ' Bishop Brent's very suggestive essay." The Living Church. 

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